I will always win.

I enjoy my sleep. A lot. I don't need to sleep until 1 pm (because I'm a grandma and am usually in bed by 10 pm, due to my days starting at 5 am, of course...), but I do need a good chunk of sleep. At one time. Uninterrupted. 8 hours is ideal. I'll take 7. So when Saturday is nearing I'm practically running to my bed on Friday night because I get to "sleep in" (aka sleep uninterrupted with no reason to get up early). But then we throw the family that lives above us into the mix. It's a mom, dad, and two girls aged 3 and 5. I've never been upstairs in their part of the house, but based on their daily shenanigans I vision a bowling alley, a track, and a McDonalds Play Place in their living room. It's a fun game for them to run (and by run I mean STOMP) across the house and squeal at the top of their lungs. Over and over and over again. At 6:30 am. EVERY MORNING! I'm not a particularly patient person, but I decided to be gracious and give them every last bit of patience I possessed. Then I snapped.

About two weeks ago it was a Sunday morning at about 7ish am, and they were having a bowling tournament above us. At least it sounded like a bowling ball was dropped and something was rolling along the length of the house. So I aggressively threw back my covers, threw open my door, grabbed the broom and pounded on the ceiling. Silence. For about two hours, and then they started up again, but by that time it was an acceptable time to have a track meet, so I didn't care as much.

So this nice, little family were angels for the next two weeks, until yesterday. Again, Sunday morning, about 7:30 am, and the girls were apparently getting flying lessons from the dad. Squeals and stomping and screams and every other noise you can imagine, driftly nicely through the floor to my bedroom. And roomie's bedroom. [I should add that she's equally unimpressed, I'm not being unreasonable]. A small amount of hidden patience creeps out and I let it be. Until 2 pm when I need a nap because I'm so exhausted and they're still playing basketball with bowling balls above me. Out comes the broom again. This time was much less effective. So I plot.

8:30 pm rolls around and I still hear them stomping around (seriously, where do they get this energy from?), then 9 pm comes and it's quiet. So I turn on my music. LOUD. I place one speaker facing upwards toward the ceiling in my bedroom (aka a sleeping someone's bedroom) and leave the other in the living room. I'm practically laughing because I'm so clever. Or so I think anyway. Then there's a knock at the door.

Neighbor dad: Does the music have to be so loud?
Me: Do your children have to be so loud?
Neighbor dad: She's three...
Me: So you have no control over her?
Neighbor dad: She has 90% hearing loss...
Me: So do I. It makes me talk louder, not walk harder.
Neighbor dad: (running out of excuses for his out of control child) I've already apologized.
Me: It was a SUNDAY morning, you have to respect the people that live below you!

(Is it unreasonable for me to suggest to him to let his children run around outside screaming? It wasn't raining...Or take them to the park and let them run around like puppies so they fall asleep? Or put a movie on for them since it IS 7 am on a SUNDAY MORNING?)

Neighbor dad: (starts walking away and mutters) This is f***ing ridiculous!

I turned down the music a little bit. Enough that it wasn't annoying me, but not too much that they couldn't still hear it. But only for another 5 minutes because I started to get anxious about my paused Gilmore Girls episode that I had seen 13 times before, but couldn't handle not watching at that moment.

I was in bed by 10 pm.