For a Pessimist, I am Pretty Optimistic

Perhaps the area of Long Island that I currently live in isn’t “technically” suburbia, but it damn sure is close. For two years my husband and I lived in a small town at the border of Queens and LI, which shouldn’t be considered the city, but it was becoming just as crowded and dirty. When the neighborhood was at its peak condition, I didn’t mind the hour commute from my job in Midtown Manhattan; it was all worth it for the peace and quiet. But after a year, the town was filled with triple parked cars, people who didn’t pick up after their dogs, overflowing garbage cans, and all sorts of other nonsense that I won’t bore you with.

Though it’s only a fifteen minute drive from where I used to live, the neighborhood I live in now was a refreshing change. The surroundings are picture perfect, the house is close to the train and many stores, and everyone is so friendly that they will always give you a pleasant greeting when you walk by. Yet now that our lease is up, I’m eager as hell to get the place rented and leave behind this town full of noise!

Seriously, for the past year I’ve barely been able to sleep one night through without being prematurely woken up by some obnoxious noise.  I’m sure the fact that the area is normally super quiet amplifies whatever sound there is, which just makes matters worse. It’s such a shame too because as a recovering insomniac, I thought the move to a quieter area would help and it’s done anything but.

Now, I’m not talking about the usual nonsense like lots of cars driving by or children playing or fighting couples…that’s all stuff that you’d expect and is easy to drown out if you need to get used to it. But the noises here are much more annoying:

1.       The house is located between two train crossings - This isn’t that much of an issue, after all there are certain factors that come into play for wanting to live 2 blocks away from the LIRR. It’s usually easy to get accustomed too, but you’re totally screwed if you accidently wake up any time after 5am. Between the hours of 5-9am all you hear is “ding ding ding ding ding”. But what makes this extra unbearable is the damn train barely even stops at the station. The towns before and after ours get practically non-stop service, but ours only gets a schedule where the train stops once every 2 hours or more!

2.       The town has been invaded by evil birds - Oh, they weren’t evil at first. When they would chirp an hour before sunrise they were cute and country like. Yet as the weather got warmer, they started chirping earlier and earlier. Just the other night I was attempting to go to sleep early and what do I hear when I turn off the TV at 11pm? Yup, those fucking birds. I’ve heard that birds that live in the city have screwed up sleeping cycles because they confuse the lights with daylight, but these guys have no excuse in this pitch black area.

3.       Constant construction of the same spot - Of course we have to live right next to the house that’s in front of some sort of problem pipe.  Every month they spend days on each step: digging up the spot, doing whatever they need to do to fix it, sealing the hole, and then smoothing down the sealing. And of course, they always start this promptly at 6:30am.

4.       Demonic street cleaning truck – It always seems to come on a Monday (the worst day to be woken up before the alarm). You can hear it from blocks away as it emits the oddest sort of noise, almost like a white noise machine on the fritz. Sometimes when listening to the drone gradually getting louder as it approaches, I imagine a cheesy horror film where the truck is from hell and it’ll sweep away any children who are playing in the street.

5.       Gardeners everywhere! – I have the biggest one sided feud going on with each landscaping company in this town. Okay, I understand the machines will be noisy and I understand that everyone (except us) has a giant lawn along with a fancy garden. But does every truck need to be parked outside of our house? I always thought that it’s their way of punishing us for being the only house on the block that mows our own lawn. Not only do I get to listen to their loud machines as they spend extra time trimming all the fancy gardens, but then I get to listen as they walk and/or ride (yes ride!) their machines back to the truck. Everyday. As an added insult, they always blow the dirt/grass/leaves in to our driveway when they’re too lazy to do a proper cleanup.

6.       Random Air Raid Sirens – The worst and most annoying of all the noises, they go off at any damn day or time. When I first heard them, it was the day after I learned there was a tornado in the town 20 or so years ago. I’ve always been fascinated/terrified of the funnel clouds and was worried that with my usual awful luck, one would touch down right in front of our house. Can you imagine the heart attack I nearly had when I heard the first siren during a crazy wind filled storm? Like an idiot, I started yelling to my husband that we needed to get the cats into the basement.

But these aren’t actual air raid sirens, that much is confirmed. They sound exactly like 5 of them going off in all different surrounding directions.  Yet other than the fact that there are no air raid drills, I was unable to find out more.  I’ve asked various neighbors, the landlady, and even some shop owners and was told from all simply that it was the fire station. It would explain why they go off at such odd times, but when I noticed the sirens could be heard from different directions, I became convinced it was something else.

Five months later, I was waiting for the train and noticed an MTA truck next to the tracks. It was connected to a hose that was deep in the ground which I assumed was draining collected sewage or whatever. Next thing I know, the truck starts emitting that damn air raid noise and when it started, I heard others probably only blocks away go off too. What they were doing, I’m not quite sure (*and I’d love it if someone were able to clarify) but I least I finally located the source of the noise.

The other day I was home while my landlady was showing the place to someone. I went to the kitchen to get something to drink and she was there chatting away with the prospective tenant. As they talked, the air raid sirens began.

“Ha, what was that?” she asked.

“Just the fire station,” replied my landlord.

I was about to correct her when the tenant looked directly at me and asked, “Do those sirens go off a lot?”

At that moment, I suddenly remembered a morning a few weeks ago. I was woken at 7am by a huge giant crash (which was caused by a garbage truck). I tried to go back to sleep, but then they started drilling next door. That was accompanied by the drone of the gardeners and the hum of the street cleaning truck. Next thing I knew, the air raid sirens went off and I knew there was no way I’d get back to sleep. I was so tired and frustrated and powerless that I couldn’t help but cry a little.

While I hesitated before responding, my landlord looked at me with pleading eyes, but she didn’t have to worry.

“Not at all,” I lied, “And when they do, you barely notice!”

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