When you live in an apartment building, surrounded by neighbors above, below, behind, and across the hall, and you work strange hours, you do what you can to keep the building quiet and peaceful. I have an example. When I came home at eleven tonight after my shift to find that my brand new air conditioner had apparently blown the fuse to the circuit that all of my lights are on, I tried not to trip over and threaten more than seven or eight objects as I stumbled through the darkened and cluttered apartment, looking for the flashlight. When I reconnected the circuit in the basement and heard my malfunctioning fan scream piercingly its return to life from those two floors below, I made a reasonable effort to cover the distance quickly to shut it off. When I was finally able to wash the bus-bacteria from my hands and knocked the soap dispenser into the bathtub, where it shattered, I limited myself to only two or three minutes erupting curses at my miserable life and that darkest of days on which I was born.

Remember, always try to be a quiet and respectful neighbor.