as far as he can tell, chris in portland thinks this anonymous text was sent by his downstairs neighbor after a morning of hitting the snooze button one too many times. “needless to say,” chris admits, “this was not the first time i had ignored the alarm clock.”
what’s strange, chris says, is that he has no idea how the neighbor got a hold of his cell phone number. “my only thought is that about a month prior to receiving this text, i left my phone number on a post-it on the front door of the building so the UPS delivery guy could get a hold of me. they must have held onto that number the whole time, just waiting for the absolute breaking point.”
creepy…but kind of genius, right?
related: recipe for roommate discord
130 responses so far ↓
#1
zombieBlanco
Perhaps the downstairs neighbor should have gone with a different pen name – after all Chris did turn off the mombanging alarm after a while, (anon) just wanted it done immediately.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:39 pm rating: +8
#2
No kidding
I had a next door neighbour last year who would leave their alarm on when they went out. It would go off for four hours at a time two to four days a week, and it was just loud enough to be unable to block the sound out in any way. The landlord wouldn’t do anything about it. This note is pretty polite compared to what I’d say and do if I’d have had his phone number.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:40 pm rating: +50
#3
emily
hahaha. genius
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:40 pm rating: +2
#4
Beanster
i cannot imagine a more appropriate response.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:42 pm rating: +13
#5
Bunnee
The use of “motherfucking” is nice, but there are no exclamation points! However, the fact that it is an anonymous text adds extra credit points. Overall, I give it a B+.
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:42 pm rating: +9
#6
aaa
Well, if Chris in Portland wanted to be really PA, he could always just pretend that whoever texted him has the wrong number. Just don’t have your phone on whenever downstairs neighbor is around, lest they call your phone to see if it really is you.
P.S. -1,000 points for leaving your alarm on. Douchey and annoying. >:c
Jun 15, 2009 at 9:45 pm rating: +7
#7
Seanette
I wasn’t aware you could send anonymous text messages. Amazing how educational this site can be.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:00 pm rating: +26
#8
Eric Lee
Well said
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:00 pm rating: +2
#9
Canthz_B
Succinct.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:05 pm rating: +5
#10
Jane Que
Holding on to the the number is kind of PA, but the message, I don’t think so. How deep of a sleeper can he be? He should be more considerate and have an alarm that doesn’t wake up the neighbors. Not everyone keeps the standard 9-5, some people (like me) work at night, and when I get home in the morning the last thing I want to hear as I’m trying to sleep is the neighbors’ alarm, or the neighbors moving their furniture at 8 in the morning.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:08 pm rating: +21
#11
leftfoot
I love the fact that the neighbors probably saved the number premeditated the necessity for a PA test.
Not only that, but the lack of words leaves the door open to all kinds of nasty things that could happen – like a strangling with intestines.. or a fire.
It’s genius.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:11 pm rating: +3
#12
Crastulim
Lovely. A work of art.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:24 pm rating: +2
#13
heidi
My freshman roommate had a possessed alarm clock, in that it would not be plugged in/have batteries in it and randomly sound an alarm during the day. We had a whiteboard outside our door in the dorms, and got a similar message one day after classes.
This, though, trumps such a small, slightly chagrining experience.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:34 pm rating: +2
#14
Quite Contrary
I think anon has the patience of Job. To wait until 10:21 a.m. to send this text is pretty amazing.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:39 pm rating: +19
#15
TheOldSchool
Both of them should simply buy houses surrounded by wooded acreage.
Jun 15, 2009 at 10:50 pm rating: +8
#16
damon8r
I wonder if the neighbor had Verizon also so they could take advantage of the Mobile-to-Mobile Text, or did Chris have to pay for the privilege of being told to shut the f- up?
Jun 15, 2009 at 11:15 pm rating: +13
#17
Ross
My wife and I are awful about turning our alarms off when we go away for a long weekend or vacation. But our neighbors have never been aggressive (passive or otherwise) about it.
Jun 16, 2009 at 12:08 am rating: +2
#18
Old ass text
Wow, this text is from December 2007. Chris is quite the procrastinator.
Jun 16, 2009 at 12:33 am rating: +15
#19
gretal
I can’t believe that none of my neighbors has ever done something like this to me. Although I did stay with a family when I was a teenager, and one morning the woman living in the basement came to my bedroom on the second floor and asked me to turn it off…
Jun 16, 2009 at 12:59 am rating: +1
#20
cTo
Words cannot describe the vile hatred I have for unending alarm clocks. When I rule the world, I will make it illegal to make, sell, or own an alarm that does not shut off by itself after 15 minutes.
And if theres anything I hate more than an alarm going off for hours, it’s an alarm that keeps getting snoozed. The alarm goes off, echoing through paper-thin sheetrock in my shoddy apartment, waking me up just as easily as if it was in my room. I’m irritated. Then the noise ends, and I think everything is fine, and I can go back to sleep, BUT NO!! Just as I’m starting to drift back into blessed, sweet sleep, I will be woken up unexpectedly YET AGAIN to CONTINUE MY SISYPHEAN TORTURE!!!
Jun 16, 2009 at 1:15 am rating: +30
#21
AJ
That’s nothin’! In grad school the guy living in the apt above mine would leave for days on end, but the alarm clock was still set to 5am. I’d get up and go turn off the fuse box to the whole apartment above me. The landlord, lived in that apartment, but wouldn’t do anything about his roommate…so every time it happened, HIS clock would shut off and he’d oversleep.
Jun 16, 2009 at 1:28 am rating: +13
#22
A
At the place where I was living last year, the people had an alarm clock tuned to a radio station and would generally leave it on about 15 minutes. They’d leave it on weekends when they were gone, and then it would persist for an hour or so. The alarm generally went off at about 6; I had to get up at 6:30 so I was systematically robbed of half an hour daily. They kept their windows open, so at one point I had someone from another apartment building knocking on my sliding glass door (I was on the ground floor) trying to find the source of the noise. Of course I let him into the main apartment building. Unfortunately he wasn’t the violent type, as the noise continued. After about two weeks I complained to the manager, and this issue was resolved…but the volume gradually increased and in another month I was reporting it again.
I say chris was lucky to get off so lightly.
Jun 16, 2009 at 4:39 am rating: +7
#23
lauren
Good for anon! I had a neighbor across the hallway in my apartment who used to have an alarm so loud it woke a few babies in other apartments. And it would go off for about an hour every morning. Eventually I knocked on their door and told them to shut it because it’s waking us all up. The neighbor denied it was her alarm, but I never heard it again after that.
If I’d had their cell phone I would have called them too.
Jun 16, 2009 at 7:04 am rating: +7
#24
Woman on the Verge
I am amazed at the appropriate capitalization and punctuation. Finally someone uses text messaging for something other than saying, “LOL, i h8 u!”
Jun 16, 2009 at 7:49 am rating: +19
#25
aaa
Honoes, it’s time for another relevant story about my douchey ex-roommates! Ahhhhh!
One of my douchey ex-roommates had the habit of letting her alarm go off for an hour or two at a time. Sometimes she’d have her cell phone alarm set to go off at 5 am (of course the alarm was some godawful song) and would not wake the fuck off even after being told to turn her fucking alarm off. Of course, this would happen every fucking weekday. Or her alarm clock would start going off right as I was leaving for class and would still be going off when I got back home three hours later with her sleeping right on through it.
Douche-fucker.
Jun 16, 2009 at 8:05 am rating: +8
#26
claw71
I enjoy sleep as much as anybody and I’ve been known to indulge the snooze button more than I should. I’ve put a number of tactics to use that were intended to get me out of bed early enough to do things I normally don’t have the time to do: going to the gym; having a decent breakfast; brewing a nice cup of coffee so I don’t have to spend four bucks at Cup o’ Joe; reading the news at home instead of doing it at work; jerking off to that lingering dream of Jessica Alba; showering the semen off my hair belly rather than letting my undershirt sop it up on the morning commute…you know, things we take for granted.
Nothing works. If I move the alarm across the room I simply program myself to tune it out and eventually my brain just works that sound into a dream. Not to long I ago I was dreaming that I was at an Air Supply concert (I fell asleep to VH1 Classic) and found it aggravating that there was a dump truck of some sort backing up near the stage. I eventually woke up when Air Supply finished their set and Nia Blackwood grabbed the mic and started jabbering. Vee Jays never die, they just get old and fat and lose all sense of dignity.
One thing that I haven’t tried is purchasing an alarm (or setting the one on my phone) to a volume loud enough to disturb my neighbors. I know that in some places (like New York apartment buildings) the walls are thing and sounds travel but I’ve been tent camping in Yellowstone where the spaces are so close together you can share tent pegs with the people next to you and my alarm doesn’t disturb them. Unless they’re so grateful that the snoring will be over that they don’t say anything. That’s a distinct possibility but even if the snoring is too loud I’m sure that the farts eventually knock them out.
I blame the lack of war on our penchant for heavy slumber. I know we’ve had a couple of skirmishes in the Middle East but it’s not the same. Chasing a few rag heads around some sand dunes isn’t a war. Not really. We need another World War that puts everybody on edge. We need this country to sleep with one eye open again, then little Princesses like Chris will have some perspective. You wake up because some Jap might be fixing to stab you in the gut with a bayonet.
Jun 16, 2009 at 9:06 am rating: +11
#27
Bradley
When I was deployed to Kuwait I lived in an open-bay barracks building that held an average of 50 to 55 guys at a time.
Everyone in the building was in the same battalion, but we weren’t in the same unit, so people had different work shifts. We were running 24 hour ops on a defense system.
This one particular asshole that slept across from me would set his alarm to go off at 4am and he would lay there with it going off for about half an hour every morning. After about a month, the alarm would go off and it would wake up everyone in the building but this guy and people started screaming at him and threatening everything from non-administrative punishment to straight up ass beatings.
Somehow the message never got through to him, so one day I walked over there while he was still asleep, with the alarm going off, picked up his clock, walked outside and pitched it as hard as I could into the dessert. Unfortunately that wasn’t very far, so it landed in the road and a HET (Heavy Equipment Transport) ran it over. Our barracks was also right across from a maintenance garage.
Jun 16, 2009 at 9:46 am rating: +27
#28
Lauren
Um, I wish I could sleep til 10:30am… snoozing alarm upstairs or not!
Jun 16, 2009 at 10:44 am rating: +2
#29
thirty six red
Ricki don’t lose that number-
its the only one you got
You might have to text the mother fucker -
I don’t know
I though our little wild time had just begun…
Jun 16, 2009 at 12:25 pm rating: +4
#30
SeaD
I had a roommate who occasionally left his alarm going for a while, or forgot to turn it off when he was gone. One day his alarm went off and kept going, and going, and going. Finally I knocked on the door repeatedly and yelled his name. When he didn’t reply I figured he wasn’t home, so I opened the door to go in and unplug the damn thing. Instead, I caught him in the most embarrassing act of pleasuring his “friend”. Uggh! I still can’t get that picture outta my head!
Jun 16, 2009 at 1:12 pm rating: +4
#31
GhostWriter
…no idea how he got your number?
…photo with, “Don’t Believe His Lies” written on it??
…beaten-up guy in the closet???
You set the alarm, Leonard, you did it! You don’t want the truth; you make up your own truth! You lie to yourself to be happy!!
Jun 16, 2009 at 1:33 pm rating: +2
#32
Zhopka
That’s a 10:20 am text message. I mean… How long was the damn alarm thing ringing?…
Jun 16, 2009 at 3:26 pm rating: +1
#33
maisoumenos
priceles..
Jun 16, 2009 at 8:32 pm rating: +1
#34
candace
I THINK I have the answer. Take a battery operated alarm and set a bullhorn in front of it and Presto…. You have an automatic fire truck alarm. The other neighbors might not appreciate it but then again, they may help buy the equipment
Jun 16, 2009 at 8:51 pm rating: +2
#35
TheOldSchool
I’m a little disturbed.
Jun 16, 2009 at 10:49 pm rating: +4
#36
Laura
My roommate sets her alarm for 2 hours before she needs to get up and presses the snooze button for 2 hours. Sorry guy, I’m siding with your downstairs neighbor. You live with/around people, you’re not the only one who can hear your loud alarm go off.
Jun 16, 2009 at 11:01 pm rating: +3
#37
TP
Team downstairs neighbor – that shit is annoying! I would never have been that polite. I’d probably have found a way to break in and leave a horse’s head in Chris’ bed or something. BTW, is this Portland OR or Portland ME? This makes a difference – Maine’s full of some pretty whacked people, ayup!
Jun 17, 2009 at 2:02 am rating: +2
#38
fluffy8u
I’m still at a loss as to why the UPS man needed his cell phone number. And why post it on the building’s door where Joe Blow can see it? Didn’t Chris think while posting it, “hey, there’s a chance I’ll get some pervy calls in the middle of the night…?”
Jun 17, 2009 at 2:50 am rating: +3
#39
mamason
“…motherfucking alarm...”
Is this the 21st century’s chastity belt?
*wonders what it sounds like when you’re backin’ it up*
Jun 17, 2009 at 3:59 am rating: +3
#40
Annette
My boyfriend’s flatmate leaves his alarm on all the time. And he’s on business trips a lot. One day, I’ll drown his alarm clock in the toilet. He told me that once the upstairs neighbor turned off the power for his apartment when he was on vacation and had forgotten to turn the alarm off. It did turn off the alarm. And the fridge. That’s what I call passive-aggressive.
Jun 17, 2009 at 5:33 am rating: +5
#41
Chloe
My junior year I lived in a dorm where a lot of the rooms had windows that opened out to this inner alley courtyard. There was this horrible inconsiderate guy who lived on one of the upper floors who thought it was totally appropriate to blast Spice Girls and other shit music at 3 in the morning and yell out the window to his friends on a different floor rather than, say call them on the phone. I suffered through that bastard for months.
One morning after his in dorm dance club kept me up until 5 am, I just couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed in the morning and kept hitting the snooze button rather than getting up or turning off the alarm. After a few cycles, I hear someone yelling “Wake Up… Dick!” I felt really bad for about 3 seconds until I recognized the voice of the person I’d annoyed as the above-mentioned jerk.
Jun 17, 2009 at 7:46 am rating: +3
#42
shirley
Wow! way to piss the neighbors off!
Jun 18, 2009 at 4:04 am rating: 0
#43
AnastasiaBeaverhausen
Also on Team Neighbor.
Jun 18, 2009 at 7:57 am rating: 0
#44
Jinx
I love how Chris admited his guilty, but still posted this as a PAN. I’m actually thinking Chris’ behavior and reaction is more PA than this note is. It’s actually a pretty straight forward note imo. If not a tad aggressive. No offense Chris, if you’re half the PA pussy I think you are who leaves an alarm on, I’d shove that up your ass. Unless you’re into that type of thing.
Jun 19, 2009 at 12:22 am rating: 0
#45
Jinx
On a second glance, that phone looks accient or realllllllllly cheap. Also, douches tend to use Verizon.
Jun 19, 2009 at 12:24 am rating: 0
#46
bobby
But what would the appropriate mode of action been? Coming up and knocking on your door to ask you to turn it off? It is creepy that they had your number, but seriously, turn off your alarm.
Jun 19, 2009 at 2:20 pm rating: 0
#47
Joan
Oh, dear. I compulsively press the snooze button, as well. I hope my neighbors aren’t angry and passive-aggressive.
Jun 20, 2009 at 3:08 pm rating: 0
#48
Big D
http://www.marriedtothesea.com/061809/dear-william.gif
passive aggressive notes is catching.
Jun 20, 2009 at 5:17 pm rating: 0
#49
David
at 10:21am, shouldn’t both lazy bastards be out of bed anyway?
Jul 1, 2009 at 5:35 pm rating: 0
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