Consideration is a Lost Art

Twice in less than a day, I have had to deal with the same lack of consideration issue. People loudly yacking outside their apartments with their phones on speaker.

When I first moved in here, I struggled with having to hear people’s private stuff.

But I’ve gotten used to it and rarely notice anything that is not exceptionally loud anymore.

Last night, I was trying to fall asleep early because I knew my cat would not understand the time change. I was facing down an ass-crack-of-dawn meowing attack that would be launched complete with 16 pounds of furry body balanced on two little paws on my chest and some rank I’ve-been-licking-my-own-ass cat breath in my nostrils.

My bedroom window is over our parking lot. I’ve adjusted to the sounds of the parking lot and they don’t bother me. Car doors, the gate, passing conversation. Those things don’t register. But this guy had a woman on speaker and had it turned up.

He was pacing back and forth in front of the gate, so he would have been clearly heard by at least 4 apartments. He must have been very clear to the people downstairs if they were in their bedrooms.

In any case, I don’t think it was a romantic/relationship discussion. Since he was pacing he and she would fade in and out, but the gist of it was that she had sent him a request for something and it did not have enough detail for him to know what she wanted.

At one point he said, very sincerely, “Rule number one: don’t make fun of the guy with the vision.”

I almost choked. I have not heard anything that douchey in quite some time.

I wish I could have told the girl to run. You don’t want that kind of crap in your life.

I had to get out of bed because I wanted to see which of my neighbors was peddling such arrogant garbage. Turns out it is one of the Mormon kids. The church leases a couple of apartments in our complex and there is a rotating cast of mission kids living in them. I had not seen this one before, but he had the outfit on so I figured he had to be one of them.

He continued his crap for another 20 minutes or so before leaving so I could sleep.

Seriously, all he had to do was go pace on the other part of the parking lot away from the building. The entire lot is very well lit and totally safe. He would have just had to consider someone other than himself.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I did get my very early wake-up call from the cat, as expected. I spent my morning cleaning, as is my habit on Sundays. I had my headphones in so I didn’t notice anything going on around me.

Finally, a little after noon, I made yet another cup of coffee and sat down at my desk to get some work done.

That is when I first heard the voices. I looked through my blinds, which I keep closed to limit distractions, and I can see a set of feet at the courtyard table near the BBQ.

I realized it was someone else on their damn phone. This lady was far louder than the guy last night. I am two apartments down and upstairs from the table in question. I could clearly hear her and the voice on the speaker. They were speaking Spanish and my Spanish is kinda iffy. Especially when it is spoken as quickly as they were speaking. I was only understanding maybe 10 to 20 percent of the words. Not enough to tell you what the topic is.

She was being exceptionally rude. People sit at that table all the time. They talk on their phones there. They talk to other people there. At most I can hear a low murmur of voices. Sometimes a shout of laughter. Nothing that is a problem at all.

This lady was just obnoxious. They didn’t sound angry, so I don’t think it was an argument. It was just loud. She was behind some trees so I couldn’t see which neighbor it was.

People like these two confuse me. How selfish and entitled do you have to be before you don’t care if you are bothering other people?

As I said with the boy, he could have gone and paced 20 feet away in another part of the lot and not bothered me or anyone else. Instead, he had to have his conversation right next to the building and all of our windows. The woman could have taken the phone off speaker and spoken at a normal volume. Other people do that all the time and it bothers nobody that they are down there.

I wish we could normalize taking 10 seconds to think about how what you do will impact other people. But I fear that won’t happen in this country. One needs only look around in America to see that many people don’t give a crap about other people.

Consideration is usually an easy fix. Be aware of your surroundings. Think of someone other than yourself.