Living with Noise

My first condo in Banff was practically in the night club zone. Early in the evening all the young people would start to congregate at each corner. Banff is full of 20 somethings following their snowboarding, mountain climbing, hard clubbing bliss. I imagined the conversation went something like this,

"You going out tonight?"
"I could go out tonight."
"Corner of Marten Street?"
"Hey, man, cool!"

Then usually what followed was a visit to one of the night clubs and a loud trek home at 2:30am. All of which means I have become an ear plug aficionado.

Two weeks ago, I moved to a new condo. It was so quiet. Made even quieter by the fact that I had no Internet. I can live without TV, because let's face it, you can watch everything online for free sans commercials. But live without Internet? No, I am not strong enough for that. The condo was SO damn quiet and mirthless I actually felt like I was living in a tomb. Everything seemed grey and seeped in sadness. I got to the point where I hated going to Starbuck's to use their Internet. When going to one of your favorite places becomes hateful to you, you know something has to give. So I managed to finagle Shaw into coming early, and joy has been restored to my abode.

But then something weird started happening two nights ago. There was noise. Unwelcome, loud, boisterous noise. At midnight. Where was said noise coming from? It hadn't been there before. Damn, I think I have new neighbours. Loud new neighbours. Just when I was thinking my small, but important, dream of sleeping without ear plugs was going to materialize I have had feckless youths move in beside me. Fuck.