The incessant barking, after two hours of laying there smoldering, finally made me ginger snap. My red head was tingling with sleep deprived, and how-rude-is-this(?) rage.The next door neighbor’s 3, or is it 4, dogs were absolutely yapping their heads off. It was about 9pm so I didn’t tried not to let it bother me. By the time I climbed in bed around 10:15 or so, they were still at it. “She’ll put them in soon, I’m sure,” thought I, without much confidence. At 12:45 a.m. I’d had it! Our bedroom window is at the back corner of the house. Her dogs are maybe 20 feet away, and absolutely going ape dinky.
Hubs was dropping in and out, I could tell by his nose music. (sorry hun) When I finally snapped, I uttered some colorful words and stomped to my closet. I put on something and marched out the front door, afraid I’d set my own dogs to barking in their bedroom (laundry room, we just call it their room so they’ll feel special), but I was steaming! I stomped over there, it was cold that night, my way lighted by her random hodgepodge of Christmas lights (still up AND on) and every light streaming from every window, including the garage. I knocked on the door (it’s got glass in it, so you can kinda see inside). Nothing. I knocked harder. Waited. Nothing. I heard some rattling and her dogs making such a huge racket outside that I thought about opening the gate and chasing them away down the street. Sigh. I love dogs, and would never do that. I rang the bell. Nothing. I double, then triple-rang the bell. I could hear it. Why the hell couldn’t she? EVERY light was on, and candles were burning on the mantle. Then finally, I saw her coming from the direction of her kitchen. She peeked out. I, leaning against the wall, arms crossed to control my shivering, bed head, BIG frown, waited. She tried to open the door. Obviously it was locked with a key. She walked away, I considered banging, kicking and yelling, but waited just to see. Sure enough, she came back and opened. “Can you please bring your dogs inside?” I utter because that’s all I trust myself to say. “Oh, sorry, yes. I’m feeding them, that’s why they’re going nuts.” Uh, what? I turned and walked away, befuddled and annoyed. They’ve been doing this for the last 4 or 5 hours.
You can probably tell that this is NOT the first time we’ve had issues with that neighbor. I’ve stood in my back yard at 3:30 in the morning, in my underwear, yelling at the top of my lungs over the privacy fence (jokeville, what privacy?), “Hey! Neighbors!!! Hey! Hellllloooooo! HEY!” trying to get their attention during a rowdy-ass party on their back porch just feet away from my bed, to no avail by the way. I’ve never called the cops, but I was tempted the most recent dog night. We both had a full day of work the next day, and our son had to be at soccer practice at 6:30a.m. for goodness sake. She took the dogs in, but the adrenaline from the encounter, and the 2 hour work up time meant that I couldn’t sleep for an other couple of hours. A comfortable confronter, I am not. I am killing these keys typing hard, again, I’m all worked up about it. Sigh.
Life’s too short. The next evening started much the same. We came home from dinner about 8pm.
Her dogs were going nut-balls. We could hear them in every part of our house. Tonight, even my hubs was annoyed. “Just call the cops tonight, you gave her a shout last night” he said. “Why Always Me?” I asked, quoting my most un-favorite Liverpool player, Mario Balotelli. I chuckled at my wit.
They finally stopped about 10pm, but not before I started searching for noise machine apps. I found one called “White Noise.” I bought it and started playing all the sounds, of which there are many, and many of which I find baffling (at least for sleeping). There are all manner of rain and rain storms, but the crashing thunder would jolt me awake like it does in real life. How about the boat swaying? Imagine waves lapping against the side of a wooden boat, then the creaking noise it makes as it rolls side to side. Sounds like a door on a rusty hinge from a horror movie… uh NO. How ’bout water dripping? Seriously, like the old form of torture. Water dripping. And dripping. Plop plop plop. What? Campfire noise. Yes, a fire sound. Can you imagine waking in the middle of the night to a crackling fire noise? Grandfather clock is the tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. Please, just stop it! Then there’s the more benign ones like heart beat, Tibetan Singing Bowl, but still, Cars Driving, Airplane Travel, Dish Washer, Hair Dryer, Vacuum Cleaner, Chimes, Clothes Dryer, Frogs At Night and even Cat Purring.
There’s a wee section of color sounds. Color sounds? You may choose from White, Brown, Pink, Blue and Violet. They all have different tones, and over tones. I like the Brown sound. I hate the name of my “white noise” though. Really? Brown? There are plenty of pretty colors they hadn’t used yet. Why not Perwinkle, or Green? Yellow, Red, Black? Ginger?? Why brown? It just brings up ugly connotations. I’m sleeping like a baby though. Let me say, it sits on my night stand, and sounds like a constant fan blowing very quietly. It’s really almost imperceptible. The first night I had it turned up too loud and every time I rolled over, I thought, “What’s that?” Now, that I’ve dialed in my volume, it’s working like a charm. I don’t really think it would keep the yapping out, but for some reason, I’m sleeping better than I have in a very long time. A good thing came from a bad neighbor. Hey, and sleep is supposed to help you lose weight, right? Bonus!
I’m a smooth sleeper. I’m down with the brown sound. Yeah.
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