Back when I painted billboards and worked at the newspaper, I lived with a woman who was ten years older than I in a four-plex. The ventilation system was such that you could hear every single noise coming from the lower apartment. Right beneath us lived Lizzie, her boyfriend Bryan, and Bryan Jr. who had not yet reached two-years of age. It seemed that every weekend there had to develop some sort of loud, obnoxious argument between Bryan and Lizzie, and it tended to really get in the way of things like intimacy, television viewing, listening to the soft soothing sounds of pre-commercial Genesis, or hearing yourself think.
One Friday night we happened to catch a particularly heated, and thus, extra loud argument between the two about how Lizzie was out until 1:00 am playing volleyball. Bryan was fond of his beer and was always a 
bit over the limit. No violence erupted that we could detect, however, we had also reached the end of our rope as far as patience with this couple was concerned. So we devised a clever, yet really nasty, plan.
My lady friend grabbed a bracelet she had in her jewelry box and placed it in a little decorative box and grabbed a greeting card she had sitting around and handed it to me. I proceeded to write:
Lizzie – Thank you for the most
unforgettable Friday evening of my life.
Chuck – 555-5555
Okay – I suppose I should fill you in on the one-two punch I delivered with this card. A few years before I had been receiving these threatening phone calls from this “Chuck” who was pretending to be someone else (I knew it was him). Anyway, I figured that this ficticious love interest of Lizzie’s may as well be this Chuck idiot, and I put Chuck’s real phone number on the card. Oh yeah – My lady friend also incuded a gift-wrapped bottle of cheezy perfume as part of this gift from “Chuck” which we left down on their mailbox that evening. Well we knew that the package had been discovered when all hell broke loose downstairs. “Most unforgettable Friday evening”?! “Lizzie”!!
It was a terribly loud and heated exchange. Poor Lizzie had no idea who this Chuck was and was trying frantically to explain that she didn’t meet anyone, but it mattered not to Bryan. Finally, Lizzie packed up some clothes and Bryan Jr. and left for what I assume was her Mother’s house. Then Bryan goes up to the high school across from the apartment building and gets on the pay phone to call Chuck, I figured. We were quite pleased that our evil plan had been a success.
Looking back, that was probably not the nicest thing to do to someone, but you have to realize that it was difficult to deal with this loud bitching every other night down there. I was working basically from seven in the morning until ten thirty at night between two jobs, and only had an hour’s nap between the two. Sunday was my only day off, and while I was really making some good cash, I had absolutely no Kipp time, and that tended to make my disposition less than charming. Something had to be done, and calling the law would have been no more than a band aid on what was a massive, festering head wound.
Life was quite peaceful after that night. Bryan came up later to talk. He explained to us that his girlfriend had had an affair and left him. Then we had to contend with our newfound drunken friend every night coming up to complain. Oh cruel karma.