flipped out

What do you usually do at home on weekends, if not going out? I bet it’s more or less something to do with relaxation. Watch some DVDs, read some books, play with your kid… you know, just a time of your own to get out of that hectic life at work. A time for you to balance out your psyche, so that you don’t turn into a fucking psycho or something.

But yesterday, I was forcefully mugged off that ‘time of my own’, when a new tenant who had just moved into the unit below my apartment (yes, another new tenant) started to drill his walls and woke my infant daughter up from her afternoon nap (I myself was interrupted from watching a movie). I wasn’t particularly too happy about that, since it has been regulated by the apartment management that renovation works are only allowed during weekdays between 9am - 5pm. That was why I played hero and went down to confront the new tenant, and hoped that the perturbance can be mitigated through some negotiation.

The tenant turned out to be a Malay family and the main villain was a middle aged balding guy with facial hair. It was as if somebody had casted a spell on him to reverse the hair growth on his head or something. Anyway, the guy was apologetic and spoke fluent English. He was like, issuing a dozen “sorry” in a single sentence, which kinda made me felt a bit like a jerk for a moment there. But I pressed on with my original mission anyway - I bitched to him, politely,

a) that I didn’t plan to spend the whole Saturday afternoon listening to his contractor frolicking with power tools.
b) It’s the regulation of the apartment block that no renovation works should take place during the weekends.

And a whole bunch of shits about how uncool it is to be an inconsiderate neighbour like him etc - in a diplomatic way.

He apologized again (apologies came out of him like an unstoppable diarrhea that it sounded so damn trite to me) and assured it would be over with just a couple more holes to drill. Sorry, sorry and sorry again. Yeah fuck, like I have a choice. I told him that there’s nothing I can do but to tolerate for ‘a couple more holes’ and went back to my pad and mope. The time was 1pm.

The drillings went on as expected and lasted for about half an hour, until I heard someone knocked at my door, it was Mr Sorry.

Mr.Sorry : “Errr I’m really sorry that I have to inconvenient you again… I need to drill this ONE final big hole and I thought of asking if you would mind that… bla bla bla sorry bla bla sorry bla bla”

Me: “Uh ok. Whatever. Just get it all done at one shot, so that it’ll all get over soon”

Like, what’s a hole or two to me, since he had already fucking drilled and spoilt half of my afternoon? I was just being reasonable… and I tolerated more. By 3pm, the drilling finally stopped and I got my peace. I managed to finish my movie and Regine got to have her nice afternoon nap. Everything went back to how it was supposed to be.

And it went well until about 5.30pm, I was playing with Regine, when suddenly, the loud sound of the drill blared through our apartment unit **PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK** - jolted the bejesus out of Regine and made her bawl like there’s no tomorrow. My heart shrunk immediately and I had to hold her tight to pacify her. Man, words cannot describe how hurt I felt seeing her screaming and trembling like that. It took me 10 minutes to get her shits together again and put her in her mommy’s arms. I then stomped down to Mr.Sorry’s den to settle the score.

Me: “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??? HAVE YOU GOT ANY IDEA WHAT IT DID TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER???”

He was with 3 of his kids when I shouted at him. Again, he was full of apologies.

Mr. Sorry: “Oh I’m really sorry, the contractor bla bla bla… sorry bla bla bla…”

I wanted to continue shouting right there and then, but I was uncomfortable doing it in front of his kids. I did not want to make that man lose his dignity in front of them, so I asked him to haul his ass out for a face-off,

Me: “I’m not going to do this in front of your kids. You come out here and we talk.”

He came out, but I didn’t talk. I shouted.

Me: “WHAT THE FUCK WAS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!?”

Mr. Sorry: “I’m really sorry… bla bla bla sorry…”

This time, I didn’t hold back the formality of being a nice neighbour. I yelled at the motherfucker at the top of my lungs and I fired unkind words with no holds barred. I was flipped out. Seriously, I wasn’t expecting anything from him right at that time. I just wanted to yell and let him know that I’m very pissed. One of the contractors came out a moment later (who happened to be a faghag), and I turned to yell at her, in vulgar Hokkien language. It completely freaked everyone out. I looked like an animal who had gone loose on the head. Whatever. But for anyone who is understanding enough, he would have figured that this is actually the natural daddy instinct at play. Just like a nasty bear. You hurt his cub, he’s gonna fucking swat your brains out.

I eventually cooled down and went back to my apartment, had a quiet moment to myself (yeah, it was effective, the drilling work never resumed) to reflect back, if this could have been solved in a more amicable way. It couldn’t have. I tried my best to be nice, but that asshole made things complicated himself. Had he been a wee bit considerate enough to adhere to the apartment block regulations, he would have avoided the conflict altogether. (not to mention how he abused the word ’sorry’ just to pave a pathetic excuse to drill more holes on his fucking walls).

Later in the evening, I stumbled into Mr.Sorry again when I was buying dinner for Emily, and we shook hands. This time, we did some formal introductions. He asked about my occupation (which I find a bit odd) and he in turn, told me that he was working at a university nearby. Maybe a professor of somekind (which makes it even harder to justify for the fuck-up he did). However, when he was about to leave the elevator to his floor, he issued the final apology - which I find was the most sincere (what the heck, he finished the drilling, DUH) and that was when I actually accepted his apology… (but I did that because it suddenly came to my senses that my car’s newer and more expensive than his… if you get my drift).