more elephant adventures

If the upstairs neighbors make noise on weeknights I'll often wait to see if they stop, since they do have day jobs and tend to go to sleep by 11. At 10:45 I heard a robust bass line through the ceiling and decided that was enough.

I pounded on the door. No one answered, so I went around to make sure someone was awake, and the light was on in the room above ours. Pounded on the door some more. Knocked. Pounded.

Finally the skinny one answers, in shorts and a tank top.

"You the guy in back with the stereo?"
"No!" An annoyed denial, with an unspoken "What the fuck is your problem?", but he is clearly not in charge here.
"I heard the subwoofer again."
"That was the washing machine."
"The washing machine?"
"We're all asleep." Points at his clothes. "Do I look like I'm listening to music?"
I looked at him and snorted.
"How the fuck should I know?"
And went back downstairs.

I really dislike doing this. The intimidation is necessary because they weren't responding to clear communication, and without profanity (or physical violence, I guess, though I haven't needed that in decades) I'm not very good at being intimidating. I'm also so unfamiliar at playing the role of Angry Male that I wasn't able to master the situation completely, and I got pulled into a staring match instead of using my words to manipulate the conversation.

• Someone in the back room was awake.
• Unless their washing machine has a variable melodic bass line, it was the stereo.
• Anna says the music stopped as soon as I pounded on the door the first time.
  

So I feel pretty good about my grounds for action.

I suppose I've successfully done some sort of alpha male thing, since I clearly make them a bit nervous, but I'm not really happy with having a relationship with the Subwoofer Douchebags that's based entirely on me banging on their door and spitting profanities to intimidate them. I was avoiding calling the police on a weeknight because they tend to eventually turn the music off, but probably I'll just do that next time.