Who Done It?

You know what the loneliest feeling in the world is? When you are awake while everyone else is asleep!

Bedtime is sacred to me. If it is disrupted, I feel violated and robbed of an essential ingredient to my life.

Last night as I turned off my light and crawled under my cozy blankets and closed my heavy eyelids, I suddenly heard people. Now this is not all that odd, for there are people on either sides of me and below me--I live in an apartment. But this couple sounded unnaturally near to me. I have lived there almost two years and have never heard this couple this unnaturally near me. I sat upright and listened.

Nothing. I laid back down. And I heard them again! They were not incredibly loud, but the thing that unnerved me was that I could not figure out where they were! Were they in one of the apartments next to me? Strange because my bedroom is not directly against either apartment that sandwiches us. Were they below me? Even stranger because in two years I have NEVER heard the people below us.

They continued to talk and I could even catch snatches of their TV. At one point, I got up out of bed and went trapsing through my apartment, listening at walls, trying to figure out where they were. This no longer became an issue of them being too loud, it became an issue of finding out where they were! It was very unnerving. As I tiptoed around my place, they stopped and I could not locate the source of their noises. So I went back to bed.

They started talking again, sounding as if they were in the very next room! I finally drifted off to sleep, but to this moment still don't know exactly where they were. Perhaps there really are little elves in our houses. All I can say is they better be quiet tonight or else they'll get a slipper thrown at them! (Providing I can find them, of course. I'll look under my bed tonight.)

PS. Actually I don't have any slippers and I adore all my shoes too much to throw, so I may have to throw a toilet paper roll at them.

PSS. The reason for the toilet paper roll is that I recently purchased some in bulk, so have more than enough to spare for shutting up elusive neighbors.