This is an older but great story from my early married life living in apartments. It's long but good. :)
Imagine a late November day in Georgia. The air is crisp and cold but my lined blue-jean jacket is enough to keep out the chill. It had been one of the tiring days at work. If you've never been a receptionist for a 30+ phone line financial company I'm sure can at least imagine how excitable people can be about their money. Not only was I answering phones from disgruntled customers but I was also the secretary to the president of our branch. There must be some job requirement for presidents that they be more than just "quirky" they have to be nearly impossible to work with. I'd spent my day calming and re-directing fuming clients and attempting to take and translate the dictation of a raging boss. My mind was exhausted and thanks to an hour on the treadmill and 45 minutes of Pilate's after work my body was exhausted too.
I come home to an empty apartment (Jonathan is at Officer Training School in Alabama) and microwave something that passes for dinner. After flipping through our 10 channels of basic cable and concluding that there is nothing to watch, Harry Potter calls from his book by my bed. I turn in for the night, mentally preparing myself to do it all again tomorrow.
My blissful dreams of wizards and the carefree life of a student were shattered as I was wrenched awake by the most annoying sound known to humankind. A car alarm. Not just any car alarm, but the kind that hope five variations of screaming loudness will deter theft and are sure to arouse the attention of everyone within a two mile radius. I groaned in frustration and looked at the clock - midnight. Well, at least it is enough time to fall back asleep. Which I promptly did. Five minutes later the obnoxious racket began all over again. Still believing that people are generally good and kind, I figured the owner would come out and fix the problem. I lay in bed still sleepy and tired waiting for the noise to stop and sleep to come once again. Just as I felt the peaceful black fuzziness surround my mind promising rest and rejuvenation - IT WENT OFF AGAIN!
Now I was angry. I climbed out of bed and looked out my bedroom window into the parking lot below. There it was, an old beat up dark blue Chevy blazer from the late 80's with the emergency lights flashing to the ear-splitting pulse of the alarm. Like any good suburban bred member of society I called the apartment management office and logged a complaint. I felt a little better after spewing my frustration off on some poor clerk who would check the message in the morning. For a moment I was sure I'd trade places with them... I'd work here and live somewhere else. My musings were interrupted by the softest little "beep, beep, beep" which was a herald for the whole mind numbing concert to begin again. I sighed and picked up Harry Potter and laid back down to read even if sleep was lost for the night.
At 3:00 a.m. the source of my insomnia finally fell silent for good but all too soon I was awoken by another alarm demanding that I begin my day. Although I'd slept a good two and half hours before the drama began I still felt robbed of the best hours of sleep. The day went by in a blur but I was thankful tomorrow was Friday and I slipped off to sleep early that night still holding Harry Potter with the lights on.
Of course the story would be too boring to end there. Around midnight I was once again pulled from my sweet, blessed sleep to the torturous sound of a high-pitched cacophonous concert of one. The encore from last night was a little too much for me to take in my sleep-deprived state. No phone calls tonight; it was time for more drastic measures. I got out of bed and found the most nondescript piece of paper I could find and scratched out a note.
"Please have your alarm fixed or at the very least disable it at night. This is the second night in a row that it has kept me up. I am human so I do need my sleep please fix this as soon as possible."
I crept down the stairs from my 4th floor apartment, checking corners to be sure no one was watching. I wanted to leave the note but I didn't want a real confrontation, therefore I did not want to be recognized. I successfully slipped the note under the wiper on the passenger side of the car... sure I should probably put it under the driver side but that was farther away and now that I was all exposed out in the parking lot all I wanted to do was run back to the anonymity of my unit.
I got back into bed and read Harry Potter as the car offered up it's harsh lament to the moon over and over and over again. When it was finally time to get out of bed I was so tired and groggy that it was difficult to stay awake in the shower. Now clean, I was standing in my room getting dressed for the day when I heard a string of curses and general abuses being yelled from the parking lot below. I stuck my head out through the curtain suddenly remembering my note.
There was a large man, probably in his late twenties, standing on the side walk in front of the blue blazer. His fists were raised above his head and he was yelling obscenities again; every other one punctuated by the "F" word. To my horror I noticed he clutched a piece of paper that he seemed to be waving in impotence at the building. Surely my nice note could have no such effect! Was this person truly unstable? What had I done? I was praying that no one saw me go out there last night when I noticed my note was still untouched on the passenger side of the windshield still snugly tucked under the wiper.
A wave a relief washed through me. Someone else had written a note too and put it on the car. As the revelation came I watched the man stalk to the passenger side and rip my note out from under the wiper and throw it on the ground without so much as looking at it. I wondered on my way to work what the other note said. It was obviously not as nice as mine had been. I could only hope that it would get results as my note went unread. I did fall asleep in the break room during lunch that day. I was operating on 5 hours of sleep in a 48 hour time frame. My college room-mate can testify that I get nasty, moody and mean without sleep, but that is another story.
I skipped the gym on the way home and contemplated going to sleep at my mom's house for the night but there was hope that the nasty note left by another sleep deprived resident would have the desired effect and I'd be able to sleep all night in my own bed.
Apparently the note made no impact other than to piss-off the owner of the blazer. Once again I was ripped from my sleep at midnight to the terrible beeping and wailing of the car alarm. In sleep deprived hysteria I laughed and laughed; I couldn't stop myself. I have had a small taste of what sleep deprivation torture can do to a man and it isn't pretty but I'd imagine it is high effective. I was no longer the mild-mannered, sweet, southern Georgia girl but a stark raving mad beast bent on destruction. Before I knew what I was doing I was out of my bed searching the apartment for something, anything that would be suitable for smashing windows. I had a plan, rather ill formed but a plan. SMASH IT!!! That was the grand plan; the one clear thought in my brain that was consuming all other thoughts except the frantic search for a weapon and I lamented that neither Jonathan nor I played baseball.
Suddenly alternating blue and white lights flashed through my windows. The police! I hadn't even left my apartment yet but my muddled mind knew they'd come to arrest me for property damage. The flashing continued and my mind slowly comprehended what was going on and I felt intense relief at the prospect of being able to sleep. I dropped the metal cooking spatula I was carrying and rushed to the window. The cop was taking down information from the blue blazer, all the while the alarm screamed in protest. I watched in amazement as the cop simply took down some information, left a ticket then got into his cruiser and left! What? No dragging the offending party into the street? No handcuffs? The alarm was still blaring and my rage doubled.
The daylight brought more sense although I was tired. There was naive hope once again that the ticket left by the cop would inspire the man to quite the alarm. It was a rainy Saturday so I slept most of the afternoon. That night I woke to the quite "beep, beep, beep" that warned of what was to come. The insanity was instantly upon me. I began to pace my apartment. I called and left a very nasty, this time anonymous, message at the management office but it didn't give release to the all-consuming rage building in me. I paced, tossed and turned in bed and screamed my own protest as the night wore on and the alarm repeated its cry every five minutes.
Amid my delirium a new sound reached my ears from the parking lot below around 3:30 am - a soft and pleasing "whoosh". I stopped pacing and ran to the window. A man was walking across the parking lot to the building across from mine, away from the flashing lights of the offending car. My muddled and mad mind finally grasped what had taken place just as the mysterious man disappeared into his building. He slashed the tires! Oh what justice! What relief! I prayed blessings upon the vigilante who took matters into his own hands. Perhaps he was the one who left that nasty note too. Oh that I could be so brave and daring in the face of such torment!
Several hours later I watched with glee as the owner of the blazer discovered the rewards of his inhumane treatment of myself and others. He swore and yelled more obscenities into the morning and it felt like sweet music in my ears. My euphoria was in part due to the lack of sleep over the past three nights but what a beautiful morning it turned out be - I never heard that car alarm again.
I will admit that it has scared me for life. To this day (some six years later) when ever I hear that particular car alarm my mind has to fight off the madness that gripped me those sleepless nights and I cringe as I fight down the rage that builds up in my mind.
May you rest in peace tonight.
