Fuck you; I hate you, Downstairs Neighbor

When we first moved into our apartment, couple A lived downstairs. They had a little yippy dog and the woman was unemployed and never left the house and the dog never went out, it would just bark to be let out. They had a massive TV and would watch it all the time. We have hardwood floors and that appears to be all that separates our apartment from theirs-- these thin plankettes of wood. The TV noise was crazy. The vibrations shook the walls. Their walking and running through the apartment more than once made my heart freeze in fear, thinking we were having an earthquake. But I didn't really hate them till they hit the door of my then-new car with their SUV door, tried to wipe the scratch away, and didn't bother to tell me. I went apoplectic; they apologized; we exchanged bottles of wine; they eventually moved out.

#2 moved in and she was a little better because she was single. Of course, she moved in with a whole crew of movers at midnight one lovely mid-week worknight and I was forced to go downstairs and scream at her smug white SUV driving pink-faced father about being inconsiderate while she kept peeping around him and trying to look at me as he basically kept telling me it wasn't their fault that the movers were late. I don't remember much else. I know I was in a blind fury and their startled faces just made me want to kick in teeth, so DD had to take me out for a two hour walk. That was a bad start. She wasn't too bad, though, but she had an equally enormous television, which was always on, and she never left the apartment either, and she would go to Costco at the same time every week, but the same cases of the same stuff (bottled water, Marie Callender's potpies, microwaveable popcorn) and eat at the same time every day, slamming every cabinet in the kitchen. "Jamie's hungry," DD and I would remark.

She moved out. Neighbor #3 moved in. Her name is Trish. She is a friend of Neighbor #2. Again, the massive television...a dinky little couch facing it... no other furniture. Unlike the first two sets of downstairs neighbors, she was small and non-white (a Pacific Islander. Yes, I was initially happy to see an API person move in. Why should I be the only API person in the building?). I was just glad a single gal was moving in, instead of, say, a gaggle of late-twenties ex-frat boys. She then got a roommate, who moved in with a giant teddy bear. The bear was something like six feet tall and its head was about four feet in diameter. He lived in the living room and I called him "Wendy's boyfriend". Wendy has since moved out, and Trish's boyfriend or some other person has moved in, and someone down there gets hungry at the same time every evening and slams every kitchen cabinet over and over, presumably hunting for food. Once I tried to count the number of ingredients she was using in her meal by counting the slams, but I gave up at sixteen. I really hope she gets pregnant (perhaps by Wendy's boyfriend) and has to put little baby locks on all the cabinets, which would preclude her from slamming. I would rather hear the cries of an infant child/teddy bear than all that slamming. Sometimes I fantasize about cutting her cable, or just calling Comcast to turn it off. Sometimes I fantasize about shooting a gun through the floor, but don't worry, I don't have a gun. Anyone who fantasizes about shooting guns should definitely not own them! Sometimes I agonize about the different crossroads of my life; the paths I chose that led me to where I am now; earning a rather pitiful (in my opinion) salary and having nothing near a down payment on a house of my very own, where there would not be a hungry TV blasting mofo whom I hate living underneath my floor.