@elizabeth :
"involved in running disputes with neighbors... who get shot for refusing to stop playing loud music"
I hesitate to share this because it was never as bad as it seems in the telling......and in the end was rather comical.....
But, when I was in med school my wife and I lived in a typical but completely new apartment complex. A girl lived above us who was never a problem until her dirt bag boyfriend moved in with her. He liked to play music really loud.
We typically tolerated it. Just one of the joys of apartment living. Well, one night it just went on and on and got louder and louder. By 2 am and no sleep I’d had enough. I banged on the ceiling. The response was immediate stomping and then the volume went way up.
I pulled on a t-shirt and my pants and walked upstairs and knocked on the door. No answer. Music blaring. I knocked harder and the door flew open and the boyfriend was up in my face. Reflexively I put both my hands on his face and shoved him back into the apartment. When he regained his balance he pulled a small knife out of his pocket and started coming toward me.
Unfortunately for him the pants I pulled on were my hunting pants since I’d been hunting that afternoon. My hunting knife was on my side. A largish but not huge knife. I pulled it out and got ready. He saw it and hesitated and then the girl saw it too and screamed "he’s got a knife".
At that point all the neighbors came pouring out of their rooms when they heard the ruckus. I knew most of them and they were all fed up with this guy and one of the larger fellows got between us.
My wife had called the police and they came up shortly and got the story from all involved. There was never a suggestion of charges against me and I declined to press charges against him and the police left.
The apartment management kicked the girl and her guy out within a couple of days.
The truth of the situation was that neither the boyfriend nor I had any serious will or intention of ’cutting’ anyone. It was all a bluff. But it immediately reminded everyone of Crocodile Dundee with the "that’s not a knife" scene. I wish I’d thought to say that line at the time.............
We moved out of that complex at the end of the semester into an older duplex where our neighbors were a professor of classical piano and his boyfriend, also a professor. We could hear him play the piano through our thin walls but it was always at an appropriate time of day and we looked forward to it.
"involved in running disputes with neighbors... who get shot for refusing to stop playing loud music"
I hesitate to share this because it was never as bad as it seems in the telling......and in the end was rather comical.....
But, when I was in med school my wife and I lived in a typical but completely new apartment complex. A girl lived above us who was never a problem until her dirt bag boyfriend moved in with her. He liked to play music really loud.
We typically tolerated it. Just one of the joys of apartment living. Well, one night it just went on and on and got louder and louder. By 2 am and no sleep I’d had enough. I banged on the ceiling. The response was immediate stomping and then the volume went way up.
I pulled on a t-shirt and my pants and walked upstairs and knocked on the door. No answer. Music blaring. I knocked harder and the door flew open and the boyfriend was up in my face. Reflexively I put both my hands on his face and shoved him back into the apartment. When he regained his balance he pulled a small knife out of his pocket and started coming toward me.
Unfortunately for him the pants I pulled on were my hunting pants since I’d been hunting that afternoon. My hunting knife was on my side. A largish but not huge knife. I pulled it out and got ready. He saw it and hesitated and then the girl saw it too and screamed "he’s got a knife".
At that point all the neighbors came pouring out of their rooms when they heard the ruckus. I knew most of them and they were all fed up with this guy and one of the larger fellows got between us.
My wife had called the police and they came up shortly and got the story from all involved. There was never a suggestion of charges against me and I declined to press charges against him and the police left.
The apartment management kicked the girl and her guy out within a couple of days.
The truth of the situation was that neither the boyfriend nor I had any serious will or intention of ’cutting’ anyone. It was all a bluff. But it immediately reminded everyone of Crocodile Dundee with the "that’s not a knife" scene. I wish I’d thought to say that line at the time.............
We moved out of that complex at the end of the semester into an older duplex where our neighbors were a professor of classical piano and his boyfriend, also a professor. We could hear him play the piano through our thin walls but it was always at an appropriate time of day and we looked forward to it.