Life in a Nutshell Part 3

NOISE POLLUTION (and other teenage hobbies)


*January 1988 -- Unfortunately, teenagers are the same worldwide. These were also the days before cell phones and several anti-psychotic medications. We had, literally, one phone per floor which was in the hallway nextto my room in our Air Force dorm at Sembach Air Base.


A couple of days ago, I brought my girlfriend to my room for a romantic evening alone without the trivialities of life to interrupt us. I lit a few candles, turned off the lights, put some Jimmy Buffett on the C.D. player, and took out my expensive bottle of wine that I'd bought that afternoon. I unscrewed the cap on the wine and poured a little into one of the plastic shot glasses that I had "acquired" from the club and let her taste it. I then let her sniff the cap like they do in the movies and she said it was fine. I was being very suave, debonair, and slick as I offered her one of the hors d'oeuvres I'd made from left-over bologna. Then I made my move. I kissed her cheek just as Jimmy got to the second verse of "If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me". As I leaned over to give her a kiss that would surely set her toes aflame and make her gasp for air... the guys in the room next to mine started playing Kool Heavy Moe G and the Rappin' Dudes at 200,000 decibels! Needless to say, the mood that I, as a gracious host, had done my best to create all evening was blown away by a simple turn of the stereo volume knob from 2 to 10.

This DID NOT make me happy.

There are several things such as stereos that go up to 300,000 decibels at 1 a.m. that should be outlawed. One such thing is walking into the room of a man who thinks that Hustler is a magazine which is as journalistically practical as Newsweek or Time and likes to put them, and the assorted pictures which are included in such magazines, on display for all to see.

I'm not going to say that I have never browsed through a publication such as this. Every now and then, I will saunter over to the "adult entertainment" section of the bookstore and, when no one else is looking, I will carefully look through the respective articles of a "Playboy" or "Maxi-jugs" out of professional curiosity and to keep up on world events. (These magazines do tend to show the female side of world news makers in a much different light than, say, USA Today) But to put these magazines and pictures on display like they were sitting on a table in the doctor's office is insane! If I had these publications on display in my room, my girlfriend would find the nearest lighter and make sure that she was the last person who ever saw them in my room again.

Another of the atrocities which befalls humankind is the 2 hour phone call. For people like me who live in a dormitory with only one phone per floor, this can become an irritation of catastrophic proportions. These people don't think that while they're talking to the girl they're trying to impress, who happens to live in the building just across the street, Joe Bob Billy Earl is sitting in his room waiting patiently for Romeo to get off the phone so that Joe Bob’s family can call from the states and tell him whether his little sister got "Best of Show" at the annual pig festival for the 4th year in a row.

But does this person, who could just walk across the street and be married to the girl he's talking to in the time it takes him to ask her out, care? NO! So, Joe Bob Billy Earl gets into big trouble because he cuts the cord leading from the wall to the phone with his buck knife while Romeo is still on the phone. Romeo does get the hint, though, when he sees Joe standing over him, frothing at the mouth, eyes bugging out, and holding his knife to Romeo's throat while he holds him up by his hair, thus ending the man's extended phone calls.

These people are the cause of a great many crimes, murders and television talk shows which take place in the country today. Certain people get fed up with waiting for people to get off the phone or get sick of others playing their music so loud as to allow people in the next state to hear distinctly what the words to the song in question are, so they do the only thing they know of to do about such people. They either go get their shotgun out of the rack and shoot the person or the stereo, whichever happens to get in the way of the buckshot, or they wait for the person to leave his or her house and they go in and take the stereo plus the T.V. and any other appliance, such as a Cuisenart or even a crock pot, which may be used to produced noise unpleasant to one's ears. People do not then sell these appliances to a pawn shop and take the risk of having the previous owner buy it back, they take great pleasure in covering the appliances with gasoline and setting a well-lit match to it.

So, the next time your house gets robbed and they only take major appliances such as the T.V. and stereo, just ask your son or daughter how loud they have been playing it while you're not home. The answer could be right next door.