The Coitus Next Door

I am fortunate in my neighbours. They are kind, friendly, neighbourly people.

My house is a semi-detached single family dwelling. This means that I share a wall with my kind, friendly, neighbourly neighbour Mark. Mark is a lawyer. I don’t know what kind of lawyer, but despite that fact, a nice man. A nice, single, man. A healthy adult male with access to secretaries and clerical temps. I see you’re getting the picture.

My house (and Mark’s next door), was built according to a loosey goosey 1924 building specification. This means that the wall separating our two dwellings has the sound blocking characteristics of tissue paper despite being a good twelve inches thick. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have guessed that the builder of my house had aspirations towards the construction of concert halls.

Yes. That’s right. You guessed it: I am treated to performances of operatic proportions on a distressingly regular basis. At odd hours. Really. Odd. Hours. All the time. Indeed. There have been sopranos, altos, and coloraturas, though the tenor never varies. The sincerity of some of the vocal performances is somewhat lacking and may provide an explanation for the extraordinary variety of female voices I have been, regrettably, treated to.

Yes, I listen. I do. I don’t have a choice in the matter: the acoustic oddity built into our houses means that his alarm clock wakes me up and I can listen in on people leaving messages on his answering machine. Indeed, Mark and I are blessed with another acoustic peculiarity: no matter what room I’m in in my house, I can clearly hear everything going on in his bedroom. It’s true. I swear. Thankfully, this has never occurred when I was having a party, or – the Mortification - when my parents were over.

Also perplexing is the fact that this acoustic effect is entirely one way. I cannot imagine that Mark is unable to hear my clock radio playing Hell’s Bell’s by ACDC with the volume cranked up to the Spinal Tap-esque level of 11.

No, I don’t do this during the operatic performances.
Frankly, I’m not entirely certain it would be of any use.
I do it when he’s talking on the ‘phone at 2:30am and I have to get up at 5:30am.

Even more creepy and annoying is that fact that my cat, like many animals, is endowed with superior hearing and a sixth sense about the imminence of earthquakes and other phenomena of nature.

He alerts me prior to every performance, regardless of whether I’m sleeping or not (Yes. Cat. I’m awake now-ow) and then stares intently at the offending wall making grumpy chuffing noises until the other noises cease. Unsettling: if I have to squirm in sudden auditory discomfort, I’d much rather do it without your dirty looks, Cat.

The Earth never moves.