Good (Soundproofing) Makes Good Neighbors

There is a peg-legged pirate with an overactive bladder living above me. I am not insane. Every morning I can hear this peg-legged soul frantically running from one end of the apartment to the other. I cannot see what he is doing, but from what I can hear it sounds as if he is feverishly cooking a hearty enlgish breakfast, beans and all, for at least seven guests. At night, while I lay in my bed, obsessively reading the last of the Stieg Larsson series, I can hear this peg-legged pirate hobble across the laminate floors and into the bathroom where he relieves himself on average for an impressive four or five minutes, only to hobble back across the flat and do it all over again twenty minutes later. Either the apartment above me is home to several people with physical disabilities, each with their respective fake leg or cane made of solid iron, or there is one man above me with an unfortunate handicap and an extremely overactive bladder.

I have never lived in a apartment before, the closest I ever came to one was during my dorm years, and even then the walls were made of concrete blocks and no one slept anyways. Last night, when I finally decided to go to bed around 1:30 in the morning, I thought about the poem by Robert Frost, Mending Wall, and realized that if the poem was to be rewritten today I don't think fences would be the weapon of choice to delineate the space that one neighbor possesses from another. Insulation, thick walls, or some form of soundproofing makes good neighbors in apartment living, and I am learning quickly that this adventure will be more challenging that I anticipated. I guess its a good thing I like a challenge.