It Really is Like 1999

I lived in a dorm my first quarter at Auburn. It was a summer session and there weren't that many students around campus. There were lots of dorm renovating and construction going on and the housing people decided to use the honor hall dorm to house those needed home for the summer. From the look of it, Auburn awarded their most gifted and devoted students handsomely. These are not your typical dorm rooms. My huge corner room, which I shared with another female student, had a 10-foot ceiling, crown molding, hardwood floor, and windows that went on forever. We shared a Jack-and-Jill bathroom with two other girls. It was as good as it got as far as dorms were concerned, but I barely got to enjoy it. I spent most of summer of 1999 in the studio hovering over a drafting table (let's hear it for Industrial Design!). The summer session was so intense and required everything I got. It was not unusual for me to only come home to take a shower after having been up for 2-3 days straight, and if I was super lucky, a quick nap. So you could see why I was royally pissed when loud screams, foot stomping, and streaming curses so rudely woke me up--the first time. Sadly, one of the girls with whom we shared the bathroom didn't exactly own a copy of "Dorm Life: The Etiquette," and chose to very loudly have a fight with her boyfriend over the phone at wee hours of the morning nearly everyday (or at least everyday that I was there). I'll spare you the rest of the story, which went nowhere good, but I do have a point. Last weekend we got new neighbors and I was actually really excited. There are eight apartments in our stairwell, two on every floor. Everybody is, or was, very friendly and courteous and most have big dogs. The new neighbors moved in and almost immediately the husband was sent downrange, leaving behind a VERY YOUNG wife. Since they were on the same floor as our apartment, I had every good intention to befriend the wife and introduce her to Baumholder. Unfortunately, our introduction came too quickly in a form of violation of quiet hours. It appeared that the wife had no problem acquainting herself with Baumholder and other teenage spouses and was, in fact, having a party at her house hours after sending off her husband to war. I should have known it was leading up to that when teenage-looking girls just started to randomly appear in our previously quiet stairwell as soon as they moved in. The girl gab, which I could clearly hear from the comfort of my own living room, and the constant running up and down the stairs drove the boys crazy. There were so many girls coming and going, I had no idea which one was the actual resident of the apartment. Anyway, well after 11:00 p.m. quiet hour cut off this past weekend, my husband, the building coordinator, had the displeasure of delivering the first warning to our floormate and her gang of gals. They weren't entirely pleased to learn that their new party central was on the same floor as the building coordinator and his very moody and pregnant wife's apartment. Since then they have either been significant more conscious of the noise level or moved the party elsewhere. Until approximately 3:30 a.m. today. Grumpy Paddy was the first out of bed. He never likes being roused, especially during his daily 10-hour beauty rest, and who can really blame him? I was sitting in the dark wondering if I should wake my RA, who apparently was well-trained to sleep through mortar attacks, to go deal with them, when I heard knocking on their door, which immediately quiet down their interesting conversation. I guess other neighbors valued their beauty sleep as well, so Wil got to stay peacefully asleep. Patience is never going to be one of my virtues, and Wil is going to have to bail me out of jail if, God forbid, these girl can't respect the rules and make so much noise it wakes up my Chase in the middle of the night. They have been warned.