Making Us Look Better by Comparison

Things I know about my downstairs neighbors:

• They have a healthy sex life.
• They have sex in the living room in such a manner that the sound channels up from their window and into various parts of my apartment.
• She’s a talker during sex.
• He, curiously, is a sneezer and is sometimes prone to burst of nasal activity sometimes five or six sneezes long.
• I heard her once say “Don’t stop” during the sneezing.
• They watch really intense movies
• Just tonight, in fact, they are watching something that has screams and gun shots being played against some foreign-language lullaby-sounding song.
• Another time the movie involved what I imagine to be a mother screaming about a dead child, then, curiously, what sounded like a car crash.
• Sometimes they have sex during the movies and it is difficult to differentiate their moans from those of the characters in the intense movies they watch.
• Don’t stop.
• Don’t stop.
• Yes. Like that.
• I’m gonna fucking blow your head off.
• My baby! My baby!
• Don’t stop.
• Ah-choo.
• Despite the fact that they drive reasonably nice cars, they have “no money,” if I’m to believe the telephone conversations I hear.
• They have various money accounts.
• All of them have “no money.”
• No money in this account.
• No money in that account.
• Seriously, dude, I got no money. I’m fucking broke. You can come see the paperwork if you want.
• Also, if you don’t want the responsibility, come over and take your name off the account.
• Oh, so you don’t want to take your name off the account, but you don’t want any of the responsibility. Why don’t you call your dad and tell him that.
• They’re willing to go to court.
• They have a son.
• He is a bit of a tattletale and the dad doesn’t like that.
• If it’s not your business, stay out of it.
• If people here you talking about other people, what do you think they’re going to do to you?
• That’s right — they’re going to tell everyone else what a bad person you are.
• Is that what you want?
• Seriously no money.
• She looks like she might have recently started having a hard life.
• He looks like a primary factor in those problems.
• If you’re not going to come over here and see the proof, you have to take my word for it.
• Fine, don’t sign it.
• She wishes they had more money to do nice thing.
• Like move.
• Allegedly, she’s pissing all the money away.
• Don’t stop.
• Yes.
• Yes.
• Yes.
• I don’t know which wire to cut.
• No money in this account. No money in that account.
• If it smells bad then don’t eat it.
• Yes, it’s clean.
• I just cleaned it.
• Ah-choo. Ah-choo. Ah-choo.
• She talks to her sister about being “not not happy.”
• If I’m to believe what I hear, various members of the family “need to grow up.”
• Who is that?! Who is that?!
• It’s the killer! He’s behind you!
• Don’t stop.

The moral: even a healthy sex life won’t cure all your problems.