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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Is That Your Car’s Stereo System Coming Down the Street or Are We Being Invaded?

I awoke the other night, fuzzy visions in my head of a large two-legged reptile, possibly of Japanese extraction, stomping down the middle of Jefferson and heading in my direction.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Awfully rhythmic for a reptile, thought I.

It was as I gained reluctant consciousness that I realized this was not imminent doom but the stereo system of someone who, loudly and proudly, was keen to demonstrate how little he thought of conventional sleep patterns.

I laugh at your sleepy-time mattress-ness!

These jacked-up nincompoops don’t come around often enough to cause me to update my dreams to include moving out of the city – after all, there are similar problems in the country – but it does cause me to think vengeful thoughts.

I lie in bed fantasizing about how I will single-handedly stop these scoffers of social contracts and the methods that I will employ.

I envision large buckets of cold water flung towards their cars from the slingshot I shall have installed on the roof of my house. Mild, yes; but I like to start slow. If we leap directly to the fantasy where I leap out flinging ninja stars, we’ve painted ourselves into a retribution corner.

Alternatively, I see myself jumping into my car, lights off, trailing them to their own homes. Once there, I give them some time to fall asleep, whereupon I scale the side of their building (ropes? suction cups? I haven’t worked this out yet), and then slip their hands into bowls of warm water.

Wake me up, will you? There you go: you peed yourself. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.

There’s also the one where I just give in completely and set up a lawn chair in the middle of the street and hold up score cards, rating the soon-to-be-deaf based on choice of artist, stereo system, and whether or not it rattles the vehicle’s undercarriage.

For now, however, I judge it best to just go back to sleep.

I’m saving my devious mind for bigger things.

24 comments:

http://howtobecomeacatladywithoutthecats.blogspot.com said...

This is why I heart you, Pearl... your mind goes all the same places mine does! Still laughing as I paint myself into the corner of retribution!

Ponita in Real Life said...

I just want a REAL Star Trek phazer... so I can vaporize the noisy buggers and their boom-boom cars! Then they are gone forever!!! mwuahahahahaha!

Willoughby said...

I can confirm that there are similar problems in the country because I live in the country. We have our share of earth shattering music rolling down the street at all hours of day and night. The local police are pretty good at giving out tickets for excessive noise if they catch you, though.

Sam Liu said...

And I will most certainly be joining you on your noble mission to extinguish these sleep-depriving miscreants! I value sleep so much, probably because I get so little of it, so anyone who dares disturb me takes their life into their own hands. So I notice we have many similarities, Pearl :D

lisahgolden said...

Retribution corner! I nearly peed myself!

Notes From ABroad said...

I mostly dream of throwing Eggs at them.
I don't know why but eggs have become my weapon of choice .. I guess because they aren't teribbly lethal, unless ones luck is totally sh*t.
But I have been there so many times that I have quit counting.. I do not heart people who behave this way.
I completely love your idea of the hand in warm water. Giggling helplessly.
But I am falling over laughing at you, sitting in the lawn chair, holding up the score cards.
I heart you too, Pearl... you definitely cheered me up this morning.. oh, ok, so it is after 12..
besos. C

Fred Miller said...

You know what they hate? When you don't even look at them. They hate that. Some of them even grow up and mature and realize how stupid they were. Another thing. Esquire magazine ran a story on boom cars some months ago. The real boom car guys display only at shows. They despise these misfits who do it on the street.

TheFredEffect

Jhon Baker said...

I love the idea of score cards. I am glad to now live on a dead end where I don't have to put up with such nonsense. - bottle rockets are also good and fun!

Anonymous said...

I think you should find out where they work and go slip a sleeping pill in their coffee just after they woke up for the day. Even drug dealers need to stay awake while they work. That would really screw 'em up!

That Janie Girl said...

Sic 'em, tiger!

Anonymous said...

Can you add loud motorcycles to your list of targets? Ugg, those bikes (and their riders) are so obnoxious! I don't believe the argument that the pipes are loud for safety reasons. - G

Teresa Evangeline said...

I used to fight back with some Johnny Mathis. Very loud. "The Twelfth of Never" never sounded so good.

Kevin Musgrove said...

A friend pointed out to me that all these noisy boys also have their car exhausts rebored to make sure that we notice them (if the thud-thud-thud of their bass speakers wasn't enough). It occurred to both of us that this made it much easier to shove a potato up the exhaust pipe without being seen.

We are, of course, entirely lay-abiding men of middle age.

Herding Cats said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog! I hate noises when I sleep, and I'm really a light sleeper -so that would drive me crazy. I have to sleep with a fan just for some sort of white noise to drown out every little sound.

Ms Sparrow said...

I'd love to gain the powers of Samantha on Bewitched. I wouldn't want to bother with the nose-twitching thing, though. I'd just want to zap the malefactors with a mental lightning bolt and turn them into flies. Then,the tremendous sonic blast from the stereo would probably promptly kill them! Hah!

Casey Freeland said...

They bother everybody. Sometimes they'll be stopped by the light outside my office. Tough 30 seconds or so.

But it is only 30 seconds.

Whenever I find myself being annoyed at loud music or one of dozens of various invasive behaviors by younger folk, I stop and try really hard to remember what I was like 25 years ago.

I didn't set out to annoy... only to establish my identity, to tell people who I was. To shout, not to piss anybody off, but rather to pound those stakes in the ground and say, "I've been trying to figure out who I am and this is what I've got so far. Recognize me as an individual."

So, with that, I might laugh at the loud boy in the low, silver machine outside my office window. But I don't complain.

If he lived next door, that'd be different, of course. Then I would, in the middle of the night, over six months or so, just a small area each night, paint his house purple.

Casey

Silliyak said...

paint balls. ("paint" is a noun not a verb in this case)

Travis Erwin said...

I actually like the verb use of pain in this case.

Gigi said...

Surely, I wasn't that obnoxious when I was so young? Of course, I wasn't - I didn't have a car, much less one that boom-boom,boomed. They definitely need to be taught a lesson and you are the teacher!

Argent said...

Retribution Corener? That;s what I want for my address, No 43, Retribution Corner! We have these pests in the UK too sadly.

J said...

Hahaha, absolutely wonderful. I've considered some of the same things at time.

Slamdunk said...

I am with you on their punishment.

In a previous career, I worked with an officer who had the same problem at 2 am with a neighbor's young kid and loud music. He knew the young man's bedroom faced his house so at 5 am for a couple of days he began playing loud annoying music directed at the slumbering boy.

He said his method worked--at least with this case.

Beta Dad said...

The weirdest thing is when the high-decibel assault is in the form of mariachi music. It just doesn't seem appropriate. It might as well be polka.

I have to admit though, that I had the loudest exhaust system I've ever heard on a street-legal car when I was a kid. I had all the noise-and-emission-reducing equipment removed, which made the former cop car faster, but about as loud as a garbage truck. I was actually kind of embarrassed. I would have turned down the volume if I could have.

Anonymous said...

I had to agree with the post title. It does seem like we are being invaded. I hate it when these people stop at red. According to me, they should never stop anywhere.