Thoughtful Neighbors

 

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Racket,

 Good morning. Isn’t it a beautiful day? It is truly impressive that a physical structure like your apartment for instance, could transform itself into such a wide array of uses over a relatively short period of time. It is true that a building such as Madison Square Garden is capable of hosting the rodeo at noon and be a basketball court by evening, but for an average apartment to make such a metamorphosis is truly remarkable requiring great elasticity, adaptability and free thinking on the part of the management. To think that your family was capable of hosting the Olympic Weightlifting Trials with the tumultuous commotion of athletes lifting and dropping enormous weights on your poor floor at all hours of the night and day and shaking the very walls down to the foundation was stimulating to say the least. The end of that endeavor brought a sense of peace and tranquility for a while. The apartment’s transformation into a recording studio for long haired miscreants toting electric guitars and drum sets was similarly disruptive as the walls reverberated with an endless hum while I walked around the apartment with cotton stuffed down deep into my ears as an arduous acoustical assemblage of dissonant anomalies assaulted my auditory senses hoping that I would not be electrocuted turning on my light switch. I am somewhat glad to know that the structure, having survived this last transformation was finally turned into a bowling alley. Although it is not as quiet as I might appreciate, at least the crashing of heavy balls rolling across your wooden floor – unhampered by carpeting – and into the wall is predictable and can be braced for with a reasonable degree of certainty, as to the time of impact. The Gorilla Gluing of all my Hummels to their shelves did not take long and I am sure that the absence of my invitation to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the grand opening of the bowling alley must have been an oversight, presumably lost in the mail, which can happen on occasion. In endless appreciation of our tranquil coexistence.

YOUR DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR

Jim