Yes, just like the Sesame Street song.
Everyone knows I like to observe people, so imagine my delight when I moved this summer to a different town, and into a turn-of-the century (20th) apartment building chock full of very DIFFERENT people.
The lady downstairs vacuums every day, I dunno if she’s got a big dog or what…there’s always weird cooking smells at dinner time and she didn’t take her Christmas wreath down from her door until today.
The guy next door to me is always clearing his throat and then hums as if he’s checking to see if his voice is raspy or something, and very loudly, too. I hadn’t had him figured out until just the other day. He is either very forgetful or suffers from a slight obsessive-compulsive disorder, & I think this is so because once he’s ready for work every day (which I think he gets ready very early, when I’m still sleeping), it takes him 40 minutes to get out the door in the morning.
He goes out and scrapes the snow off his car (which most Minnesotans do in the wintertime, so I have dismissed this as normal), then he goes back upstairs, where he makes a whole lot of rattling noises and more throat-clearing. He comes out into the hall with his coat, hat, briefcase and his cooler, I think one of those Igloo Playmate ones, puts them down on the floor in the hallway and then goes back inside to fuss around some more.
This is all going on from the time I get out of bed at 6:30 until the time I am out of the shower at 6:45, and the only reason I know about all this going on is because this building’s walls aren’t very thick and in the a.m. it’s very still and quiet around here except for him.
By 7:10, I am dressed, the coffee is made, my hair blow-dried and I’m getting my shoes on when I hear him still checking things around his apartment. I know this because he goes out the door about 5 or 6 times muttering to himself to check the lights again, check etc., etc., and finally he gets his coat and hat on and goes down to start the car. He comes back up to grab his stuff and I hear him tell himself to double check that the space heater is off; etc. I am going out the door a couple minutes later and he is just finalizing everything and is usually coming out behind me.
I may be wrong about him, perhaps he is just used to a certain routine in the morning. Nontheless, I find it strange, and sort of amusing.
The twenty-something guy w/the receding hairline and entire wardrobe consisting of flannel shirts and sweatpants goes unseen for days and even a week at a time, only known to go out into the world when the weather is nice. Perhaps he’s a writer with either a block or a hot story in his head or his pc and he cannot escape from the bowels of his apartment. Perhaps its none of my business…
The guy in the apartment whose windows are right across mine has a variety of home exercise equipment and books in his front room and he goes to bed very early because I once was playing an mp3 on my computer speakers (my computer desk is in my bedroom) and it wasn’t yet 9:00 and he knocked on the one wall that we share (I presume that is his bedroom) and lately I see his lights off early too. I have never seen this person in the laundry room or getting the mail, but he could work evenings or something like that.
The lady on the same floor, down two units from me lives with her daughter who’s about fourteen and they are always doing laundry. I have alot of clothing and towels/linens but these people, for just two of them, are REALLY laundry monsters.
Then there’s this guy (who I know but have not met yet, he is buddies w/my brother in-law) that lives across the other side of my unit in the adjoining building, is a front man for a band that always plays at a certain unnamed local live music hangout and just moved to the complex in November. He has his keyboard in the dining room and is NEVER home unless it is late late late on a weeknight. I think they have nightly gigs at that place ’cause when he is home he’s on the computer or is probably gone to bed.
I am by no means, a voyeur or peep freak. I just see these things going on (very easily I might add) and I am simply observing the things I see and sharing them. Also, I understand how people w/obsessive-compulsive disorder live and have to deal w/this, and I am not making fun, so please do not email and tell me what a horrible person you think I am.
Thought for the day:
“Change is inevitable….except from vending machines.”