The Blair Witch

I was making pie dough in my food processor one evening last week, which involves some aggressive maneuvering of the food processor on my part -- but results in superior crust.

I had just put the dough in plastic wrap to chill in the refrigerator when someone knocked on my door.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Uh, my name is Nicholas, I'm your downstairs neighbor."

Hmm -- what does he want?

I open the door and yes, it's the degenerate bf of my trashy downstairs neighbor. If you know me, you know my life has been a living hell since they moved in. All night parties, violent arguments, drugs, alcohol...basically, they suck. And now the boyfriend from this couple is standing at my door and he wants to talk about noise and is asking me to let him/them know if there are any problems with noise. I was a bit surprised, it was only 9 PM on a Thursday and I hadn't found them particularly noisy that night.

Because I'm me, I engage him in a long and detailed conversation. (I need to stop doing that...)

His name is Nicholas, both his parents are deceased. He's Catholic, but his girlfriend and her family are Greek Orthodox and Greek's are LOUD! He's kind of dreading Greek Easter with them. He has a brother and a stepbrother. He's a graduate of Johnson and Wales and works in 3 restaurants: Smoky Bones, Centro and Sunset Grill. He worked at a restaurant in Saratoga Springs in 2006 as part of his intership at Johnson and Wales. He finds the neighbors below him to be noisy too, saying they play video games loudly at 4 in the morning! (Gee, imagine that...loud at 4 AM...) He's taking financial management classes and owns property in the Bahamas, California and Norwalk.

When speaking of his girlfriend, he twice indicated she is crazy, as demonstrated by using the "cuckoo" finger motion at his head. He also said she gets very jealous of the time he spends with his buddies...which is why they party at the condo all the time. Super!!!

Back to the noise issue -- they hear me stomping around all the time in my high heels. Yes, incredibly they have an issue with ME! Hilarious, I know. Especially since I haven't been in heels for over a month due to a knee injury, and I don't wear shoes around my house anyway.

But you know what brought him up to discuss noise with me this evening...

The food processor.

Yes, my aggressive maneuvering of the food processor involves some banging and thumping, in addition to the sound of the motor itself. And while I was manhandling my food processor, Nicholas was banging on the ceiling in response. (Which I heard, but assumed it was their typical noisiness, not anything directed at me.)

So, he does get some points for addressing the problem. He loses all points for being both drunk and high when he came to my door.

Going forward, I'm going to be more conscientious about what shoes I wear in the house so as not to disturb them (i know, really!!!) and if I find their partying too extreme, I should let them know they need to quiet down.

Oh, and what's the deal with the title of this post: The Blair Witch...Apparently Nick and his buds were downstairs one night (drunk and high, obvi) and I was stomping around my unit (in heels, of course) and probably making pie crust in my food processor and the sounds emanating from my unit reminded them of The Blair Witch Project. So they call me the Blair Witch -- which, as you can imagine, I love the name!!!

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Follow up: I mentioned the above incident to my beloved mother in an email and this was her response:

They are not stable people. How old are they? He is probably a bus boy at all the restaurants he works for. As for cuckoo, he is as nutty as the gf. Also, if he owns property in the Bahamas and Cali why is he spending the winters in NE? Steer clear of these people, they are bad news. No more conversations if he or she appear at your door. Tell them you have poison ivy or poison oak. "M" oxoxox

Love it! Poison Ivy or poison oak...where does she come up with this stuff?