There was a curious letter to the advice columnist, Dear Abby, in today’s paper. People living in a condo, which means in close quarters, use their fireplace as a heat source for their living room area. A neighbor with severe respiratory problems has asked them to stop burning, which has put a strain on what we presume is their friendship. They asked for advice, and Abby gave it. Give up the fireplace and get an electric heater if you need it, because you’re causing a serious health hazard to your neighbor. She’s quite right, of course. Condos represent communal living, whether we like it or not. I’m guessing that the folks with the fireplace like the ambiance that a fire in the fireplace creates, and they’re reluctant to give it up for that reason, because a fireplace is a notoriously inefficient way to heat a room. We sometimes forget that our wants, likes, and behaviors can have an impact on those around us, unless we’re living on a mountain top in a cabin by ourselves, or in prison in solitary confinement.
Some years back, I wrote a blog entitled, “Am I disturbing you?” Its focus was on the sounds that people make to which we are sensitive but they are seemingly oblivious. A revving motorcycle engine, for example, which we’ll assume gives the rider a sense of power and pleasure, but which drives the rest of us nuts. I’d put the beeping sounds of a dump truck or a school bus backing up in that category too, but there we have a safety issue, so we’ll live with it. We have standards of behavior that allow us to live and interact together in relative peace. When we come to a red light, for example, or see an oncoming school bus with red lights flashing, we stop. Is it inconvenient if we’re in a hurry, yes. But we do it anyway. If we come upon a road construction site where the flag person is holding up a sign reading “stop”, we customarily do that unless we want an unfortunate interaction with heavy equipment.
The point of all this is that I can’t imagine a world where we deliberately do something that others find annoying or offensive. Yes, it’s true that, from time to time, I’ll say or do something relatively small to provoke my wife, which usually has the desired effect as she invariably rises to the occasion. But that’s just to keep the excitement alive.
Having sat on our condo board of directors for many years, I’d see neighbor disputes that started small and tended to escalate. We’d have to remind them that they shared walls, which weren’t entirely soundproof. In one of our apartments, after we were first married, there was a young newlywed couple that moved in above us. We called him “Sasquatch”, because the floor shook as he walked across the living room. They also argued constantly, and would turn up their behemoth sound system of “mask” their angry exchanges. One several occasions, I’d knock on their door and ask them to turn down the sound, and they did comply – until the next argument. Mercifully, they split up after about six months. Problem solved.
Our dear friend, Lady Peacock, about whom I’ve written from time to time, sold her house and moved into a small condo association. Shortly after she arrived, she was surveying the property and stated that she wanted to know “specifically where her lot line was.” I explained that it was the front porch, because everything else was common land, which she thought quite unreasonable. She expressed a dislike for her neighbor’s orange flowers, and was planning to ask her to change them when I pointed out that the neighbor was under no obligation to switch to a color she preferred. Once again, that intriguing “I like what I like, and everyone around me must conform” perspective.
Do we in fact go through life annoying others? Probably, and often in ways that we don’t even realize. We sit at a stop sign wait to safely pull out, only to find that oncoming vehicles were not, apparently, built with directionals that most of us use to indicate to others where we’re going. As I was heading out the other day, I noticed two big dump trucks in the center lane of traffic, so I pulled into the right lane in hopes of getting around them. But no, the car ahead of me moved at glacial speed, so I remained behind the trucks and this car when the lanes merged. Really? Outrun by not one but two dump trucks? As my late grandfather used to say, “Get off the road and cut up your license.”
Yes, sadly, there is much in life that sets our teeth on edge. People that call me at all hours to sell me some Medicare supplemental plan that I don’t need. They always start with, “I see you qualify for . . . . .” They never stay on the line long enough to hear me ask them to remove my phone number from their call list. Probably some artificial intelligence source, which has a few, very few useful functions but otherwise is the current scourge to human existence. Amazon recently announced thousands of job layoffs due to expanded use of AI. Great, now we’ll never get any problems resolved. It’ll just be Jeff Bezos and the delivery drivers, and even they’ll be going in a few years with self-driving trucks, although there still will be the need to put packages on my front porch. If you’ve ever tried to contact a company because of an issue, as I did this week when the cable went out, there wasn’t even a number to call to talk to someone. Their wonderful “chat” system typically responds to me with “I don’t understand your question.” Then, of course, they will ask how well they did “resolving my problem.” Surveys in the absence of service.
While major issues do come up, sometimes it’s the smallest things that can really annoy us. I don’t mind someone in line ahead of me at the grocery store questioning why they didn’t get the sale price, but do they have to make that inquiry at one of the busiest times of day, with six or eight customers lined up behind them? When the cashier calls over the supervisor, we know we’re in trouble. And at some point, I’m going to write a comprehensive handbook on supermarket parking lot etiquette, because there are any number of people that need it. From those that dive into a free space ahead of someone that’s been patiently waiting for it, to the person that leaves their cart in the middle of a handicapped space. Or the person that is terrified of damage to their vehicle, so they take up two spaces or park diagonally. That’s usually an Audi, a Mercedes, or a Range Rover. And don’t even get me started on the person that’s chosen to drive a truck the size of a city bus. They have the right to own it, but not to drive it out anywhere that it will block our view or take up multiple parking spaces. A simple rule should be, “If you can’t even climb up into it, even after a couple of tries, society should have the right to take it away from you.”
Our neighbor, a very nice young man with a booming voice and, shall I say, a bit of a talker, would go outside to conduct his phone conversations so as not to disturb family members. Thoughtful, except that he’d walk back and forth under our living room windows, to the point where we’d have put on closed captions to know what was happening on television shows. Phones have boosted the annoyance factor significantly. The person in the grocery store that is carrying on a conversation on their cellphones while blocking the aisle or holding up the checkout line. Worst are those with ear devices, so they’re a) speaking loudly and b) not speaking to me. I pleasantly respond thinking we’re having a conversation, only to get a distracted, annoyed look back at me. I would ask my daughter from time to time if I needed to take my phone with me, to which I’d get a stern rebuke: “Dad, you should ALWAYS have your phone with you.” It seemed a reasonable question, seeing as, when we’re going out together, she invariably asks “I don’t need my wallet, do I?” Not while Bank of Dad has his.
Anyway, we need to develop a few communal skills – tolerance, flexibility, patience and understanding. Things will set us off, but we need to learn to deal with them calmly and after taking a deep breath or two. We need to see things from other perspectives, not just our own. Or, to again quote my late grandfather, “We’ll compromise and do it my way.”
I'm Thinking...No! 