best early birthday present ever...

...maybe.

I've mentioned my FLAMING HOT HATRED for my downstairs neighbors before, correct? Because, oh my god, the hate. I know I was kind of spoiled before they moved in; I had a little old lady below me for the first three months I lived here, and after she moved out, the apartment sat empty for almost a year.

And then THEY came.

They loved to play the worst possible music (i.e. tejano) at the highest possible volume. On one glorious occasion, they had a party that lasted until 1:30AM (on a work night!), and oh, the tubas did blat and the accordions did squall as I lay in bed with a pillow over my head, fuming.

They had a small, screaming child who loved to stomp around and make my floors shake. You'd think that I wouldn't be able to feel the footsteps of the people below me; you would be wrong. G thought I was exaggerating until he came over to tend to me during my bout of food poisoning, and as the hump dumpling gleefully ran about below, he turned to me and said, "Jesus, you weren't kidding."

The man of the house was a creepy, shifty-eyed fellow who liked to sit on the stairs and smoke cigarette after cigarette. He would then thoughtfully leave the butts strewn about for everyone else to enjoy.

Have I had worse neighbors? Absolutely. For example, the budding serial killer who terrified me so much that I walked out the door with a reeking trash bag, saw him coming up the sidewalk, and immediately made a U-turn back inside lest he put me in a pit and send me down a pail containing a bottle of lotion. The man who pissed off his balcony onto our patio.

Have I had better? Absolutely. I refer you back to the elderly woman that I never heard and only saw once, when she was kind enough to let me use her phone to call Triple A after I'd stupidly locked my keys and purse in my car.

But oh my god, dear reader, it is with tentative joy that I tell you I think the fuckos might have moved.

A couple of weeks ago, I opened my living room blinds just in time to see a truck drive away with a ton of furniture, including a child-size headboard, in the bed. This was about an hour after I heard lots of thumping downstairs.

I haven't seen their car in ages.

I haven't been awakened at 6AM by their alarm clock and their stomping about.

I haven't heard their footsteps.

I haven't heard their kid.

I haven't seen lights on in their apartment.

The curtain in their kitchen window is gone, and as G can attest (considering that he stood in my sink for an hour installing blinds over MY kitchen window), our building gets very intense sun exposure in the late afternoon. You wouldn't leave the kitchen window uncovered unless you wanted to know what it feels like to be a steak under the broiler. (By the way, don't ask me why my complex doesn't provide any kind of window treatment in the kitchen. I don't know either. You'd think the exorbitant rent would entitle us to some $10 blinds.)

There are three things that give me pause, though, and keep me from dancing about my apartment in celebration. They still have that fucking couch on their patio, along with a huge trash bag full of aluminum cans...probably at least $20 worth. And I can see their fridge through the kitchen window, too. (Note to non-California residents: it is very, very rare to find an apartment here that comes with a fridge. This was not one of them.) Why would they leave all of these things behind? I was thinking that they needed to come back with a dolly or something, but July is over a week old. I can't imagine they'd want to pay rent for a fridge, a bag of cans, and the ugliest couch in the world. Maybe they skipped out and left that stuff behind as a meager payment?

At any rate, once I'm absolutely positive that they're gone, I'm busting open a bottle of champagne, reconsidering my position on The Secret (maybe all that visualizing about them moving worked?), and praying that nobody else moves in for a long, long time.