Yes, I know this sounds overly dramatic. I seriously thought I was going to be beaten to a pulp tonight. My heart is *still* racing, but not from fear. My adrenaline kicked in and I was going to fight that man to the death, in my nightgown, on my doorstep.
So, for the last few nights, my neighbors have been seriously freaking loud. Slamming doors, screaming in the hallways, crying loudly in the corridor outside my door. My daughter kept asking me to go see what was up, and I told her no - I wasn’t going to butt into the neighbors’ business. Maybe they were going through some tough times, maybe they have hot tempers. I was young and pregnant once. I have a **very** hot temper. I am MEAN and LOUD when I am angry.
Tonight, after one a.m. this time, there is banging on the door AGAIN. Only this time it sounds like my apartment door. I race to the door, wondering if they’ve actually hurt one another and the 19 yo pregnant girl is standing on my stoop for help. My heart pounding, I wrestle the deadbolt and yank the door open … just in time to see her throw her food and purse down on her OWN doorstep, and slam the door after she walked in, screaming at her boyfriend.
What. The. Eff.
Ok, NOW it has gone too far. This is too much. I stand there, contemplating. Do I knock on their door? Do I reach back inside for my phone, call the police? Suddenly, the young man comes out.
“I’m so sorry. She’s been acting so crazy. I know we have been loud tonight, but she is just … she is just being a crazy woman. I didn’t know what to do. I was going to ignore it, then she went out and threw eggs at my car - at my CAR! So, I locked her out. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did.”
Oh for goodness sake!
So I say, “Look, dude. She’s young. She’s pregnant. I don’t know what she was like BEFORE she got pregnant, but this isn’t good for her, OR the baby. You need to take a walk and calm down when she starts acting like this. You two need to learn to talk, and work it out. You’ve been disturbing my child all week. Now this? Now I’m pissed. You’ve been waking my kid up from a sound sleep with this nonsense. Please, just tone it down. I know it’s rough, I know you’re wondering what the heck you got yourself into. Please, just TONE IT DOWN.”
He says, “Hush.”
WHAT?
“Hush. You need to tone it down lady.”
Dude, I’m not even raising my voice yet. You want to see me un-toned down, you better prepare yourself.
“Hush. You don’t need to be cussing at me.”
CUSSING? I did not say one single curse word. Not only did I NOT cuss at you, I haven’t even raised my voice or used my MOMMY tone on you.
“Hush. You said ‘pissed.’ You don’t need to use that kind of language with me.”
Ok, maybe he’s a zealot of some sort. Whatever. So I say, “Ok, then I was ANGRY. And NOW, I am going to get loud. It is after one in the morning, and I do not need to be outside in this corridor having this conversation with you. I tried to treat you like an adult and do this quietly, but my next step will be to call the cops. I refuse to deal with this.”
“Call the cops, you fat fucking cow. Call them. See where that gets you.”
Dude, I know I’m fat. Calling me that, doesn’t hurt me. I’ve been called worse. You’re just telling the truth. And now YOU are cursing at me. So I’m going to walk inside quietly before this blows up.
That man steps up to me, looks down on me two inches from my face and starts SCREAMING at me. His arms are flailing all over the place. His face is red, the veins are popping out of his forehead, his eyes are bulging.
Fuck. No.
STEP THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE YOU STUPID BASTARD, BEFORE I GET REAL MEAN. BACK THE FUCK OFF NOW, OR WE WILL HAVE A REAL PROBLEM. You think you scare me? You don’t scare me. You PISS ME OFF. I’ve been beat by bigger, meaner, uglier assholes than you, and YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SCARE ME WITH THIS SHOW. YOU want to hit me? HIT ME! I’ll get up and BEAT YOUR MOTHER FUCKING ASS! You twerp!
“You can’t yell at me, you fat fucker! You get your fat ass back in your door and step off of me! I’m not going to hit you! What’s wrong with you?”
Ok, you’re not gonna hit me? Fine. Back off onto YOUR doorstep. It’s only two feet away. We’ll continue TALKING about this. Don’t wake my kid up, or we’re going to have an issue whether you calm down or not.
“Bring your shithead out here. I’ll kick him in the face.”
WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY? Are you out of your FUCKING MIND? You’re THREATENING MY CHILD?
“I’ll kill your fucking child, you fat fuck!”
NOW I’m calling the police, you fucking hothead. Get into your apartment and shut the door. Back the fuck out of my space. Good night.
I walk inside, and I’m scrambling around looking for my phone. I ALWAYS have my phone in my hand - what the hell did I do to it? I’m just considering going in my daughter’s room and grabbing hers, when a polite knock sounds on the door. I holler, “Come in - it’s open!” because I think it is the girlfriend, who has been pleading with him this whole time to get away from me and to calm down before the cops come and they get kicked out. I’m thinking she’s coming to try and smooth it over, but I’m too pissed to deal with her. I see my phone, and walk over to it as the guy comes in, tears in his eyes, suddenly looking defeated.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I would NEVER hurt anyone. I get angry and I mouth off, and I do it all the time. I’m so sorry. I swear I would never hurt anyone.”
Are you kidding me? You threatened my CHILD. Dude, you could have beat me to a pulp and I would have fought you tooth and nail. You could have stayed in my face screaming all night and I’d scream right back. YOU THREATENED MY CHILD! Are you fucking KIDDING ME? I tried to have a polite conversation with you, and you turn it into this nasty all-out scream-fest. You get in my face to threaten me, because you THINK it will scare me and back me down, and then you THREATEN MY CHILD when I won’t turn tail and run?
“I’m so sorry ma’am. I didn’t mean any of it. You’re not really fat. If you’re fat, I’m fat too (he’s not thin, but he’s muscular and THICK - enough to scare most people). I seriously, I just run off at the mouth. I do it all the time, it always gets me in trouble. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what your kid looks like - I would NEVER hurt your kid. I swear.”
By now, I’ve calmed down. His friend, who had been trying to pull him out of my face, trying to get him to go inside through the whole argument in the hall, had walked in behind him. He was apologizing profusely through the whole situation, but I hadn’t looked twice at him. The friend (who I now see has a ROCKIN bod) was of no concern to me - the noise my neighbors were making, and the safety of their unborn child was what I was worried about. Anyway, he walked in apologizing. While the neighbor-guy was apologizing, so was the friend, saying “I know this is a really awful first impression, but I swear he’s just a hothead, he’s never hurt anyone.” The two of them apologizing together had cooled my temper. I was thinking straight again.
I looked at my neighbor, “Don’t you EVER, for ANY reason, threaten a child again. EVER. If anything happens to my daughter, it will be YOUR ass I come looking for, I don’t care WHEN it happens. Threatening a child is a good way to get yourself hurt. It’s a good way to get your ass thrown in jail. It’ll piss me off, it’ll piss my friends and family off. It’ll piss off YOUR friends and family. It isn’t cool, it isn’t okay. EVER. I don’t know what y’all have going on over there. I don’t care. She’s a crazy pregnant lady - FINE! You have NO IDEA what it’s like being pregnant. Things heat up, TAKE A WALK. Calm down, go back and work it out. You have a CHILD at stake here. For the sake of the rest of your life, you have to learn to work with it. Period. Threatening me, my child, or the world won’t fix that. YOU need to man up, take a step back, and fix what’s wrong WITH her. Not stand opposing to her. GROW UP. It’s time. YOU are about to BE A DAD. You need help, fine - I’m next door. ASK FOR HELP. But don’t be all drama-queen-and-king over there, slamming doors, screaming, crying, fighting in the parking lot and in our breezeway. Don’t be disturbing MY family. DO NOT THREATEN MY LOVED ONES. I’ve lived a worse life than you could imagine. You do not scare me. You threaten the ones I love, THAT scares me. It scares me for a split second, and then it PISSES ME THE FUCK OFF. I know what it is like to be young and pregnant and starting out. I’m old and fat now, but I wasn’t always so. I had my kid at 20, I kicked my ex-husband out at 21 because he couldn’t man up. I raised my child for almost 14 years on my own. I’ve been through it ALL. I know how hard it is. Again. You need help, ask. I’ll try to help. Don’t disturb my family again, though. Period.You get your shit together and be a good neighbor, guess what - **I** will be a good neighbor. Continue to be a shitty neighbor, I’ll call the cops. You officially overstepped the boundaries. Threatening a child is NEVER okay. There’s nothing bad about children. What makes children bad is adults doing shit like you just did. THAT is how they grow up into shitty adults. You need to make a happy home for your kid. If you’re the father, you’re going to have to work with her for a LONG time. As long as your child is alive. GET USED TO IT and do it right. And, just so you know - my friends will know about this, and you’re my ONLY next door neighbor, so my friends will know where to point the cops if anything happens to me and my child. OR my pets.”
He had tears in his eyes the whole time. His girlfriend walked in towards the tail-end of it. I looked at her and said, “YOU need to chill the heck out. This isn’t good for you OR that baby.” She says, “I know, she hasn’t moved since this all started.”
Then she asks if I called the cops. Nope, I didn’t even know where my phone was when I came in, I was so pissed off (I’d walked by it four times - blind to it for a reason, I’m sure). She says they’re in the parking lot, and she’s scared. I go out, look around, come back into my apartment and tell them there’s no cops. Go home, chill out, work it out - QUIETLY.
They ask if they can have us over to dinner sometime and start fresh.
*sigh*
I would not be 19 again if you paid me. I was 20 when I had Rena. I turned 21 six weeks later. That was rough enough.
Oh, hell. I just ran and checked the door because I heard someone banging on it. It’s the cops. Next door. Now, I am a *little* worried they’ll think I called the cops.
I sure hope this is the last of it.
