Open Letter to Apartment 6A

Dear tenants,

I get it:  you moved to Colorado for the ski season so you could be ski bums and enjoy all rights and privileges pertaining thereto.  Sleep late, ride "that gnarly pow" all day, wait tables at some dive bar in the village, toke up on the weekends (or the weekdays, or all of the above, depending on your preference).  Who wouldn't love to take a year off from school and do that, especially if Daddy is paying your cable bill and you've already taken all your gen-eds so you aren't worried about missing that oh-so-vital Western Civ class in order to graduate?

Some of us, though, weren't so lucky.  Some of us had to finish school--often while working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet--and get a job ASAP, and then work really fucking hard for years to end up in an entry-level position, far beneath your Masters Degree skill level, in order to be in a job that might actually go somewhere meaningful. 

Regardless of that, though, I've given you the benefit of the doubt--maybe I've just forgotten what it's like to be 19 and untethered?  For the last 4 months, I've dealt with the cigarette butts in the yard.  I've dealt with the ludicrous nature of 6 of you crammed into a 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment, where at least one of you sleeps on a mattress in the dining room.  I've dealt with your (noisy) comings and goings at all hours.  I've dealt with your Wiccan beliefs and your free love attitude (incidentally:  you're 19, but you pretend that it's 1969 and you just got done being roadies for Hendrix at Woodstock--do you realize how absurd you seem to the rest of us who aren't in a constant hippie haze?).  I've even dealt with my own apartment constantly smelling like the set of a Cheech and Chong movie.  Do you know how sad it is to watch an aging 14 pound Beagle deal with a contact high?

Last night, however, one of you crossed a line.  Or at least that's what the drunk guy pounding on your door at midnight seemed to think, as he kept yelling it at full volume until someone came outside to talk to him.  (Pro tip:  don't engage with angry drunk people; it only angers them more and makes you feel like you've gone down the rabbit hole.  In other words, no one wins.)  Now, I don't know if you actually slept with that dude's girlfriend or not--maybe they were "on a break" (are you even old enough to get that reference?), or maybe she lied to you about her relationship status (you really can't trust Facebook, you know), or maybe you didn't actually sleep with her at all. 

But truly, none of that matters.  What matters is I had to listen to you two fight it out in the stairwell for 20 minutes before I realized that this wasn't going to be resolved in a civil or timely manner, so I had to haul my ass out of a perfect-comfy bed to tell you to can it before I called the cops.  I'm a week away from my 29th birthday (sounds terrifyingly old to you, I'm sure), and your alleged indiscretions turned me into the cantankerous old man who lives at the end of the street and yells at kids to get off his lawn.  How did that happen?  I have 40 more years before I have any reason to become that person!  But no, last night, I got thrust into my own future, all because I was rudely and suddenly awakened by Whiskey McDrunkPants wanting to punch you in your lying, cheating (so he claimed) throat.

All this to say, enough.  I'm done.  Also, don't make me come down there, just wait until your father gets home, keep the noise down because it's a school night, and finally:  Grow Up, Wiccans.  The rest of us did.

Sincerely,

Eden