Hot Tubbing

Don't get too excited by the title.
It's currently 5:06am as I sit at my semi-ancient eMac to send this out to you in cyberspace.
At 12:21am, I thought that I was hearing things; a low, constant hum. I thought that it was just my house making noise...the furnace, or the aforementioned computer left on. It was almost an electronic sound. But it was consistent. It was unrelenting, uninterrupted. Not long after I became aware of this annoying buzz, it had lulled me to sleep.
At 2:36am I thought that I was hearing things. Voices this time. This is getting worse. It's never good to hear voices (even the wizards think so). It was also 2:36am. I wanted to be asleep. I was having a delightful dream about - of all things - playing tennis. I'm absolute crap at tennis. But I do like the outfits. I figured that some drunks were teetering home between the alleyway linking my backyard to the yards of my 'backdoor neighbours'.
At 4:07am I thought the TV had been left on. THAT must be it. It explains the voices, the low, monotone hum. Cursing the other person residing in our house, I rolled over and tried to blank it out. If I got up, there'd be no going back to sleep.
At 4:49am I finally got up. I had lain in a state of not-quite-sleep on the brink of wakefulness for about three quarters of an hour. Somewhere, in the foggy non-dreams of non-sleep, my brain had latched on to the true perpetrator of the horrible crime of stealing one's Sunday Morning Sleep: It was someone outside.
Now, it's -10 degrees Celsius out. Who in their right mind has been outside for over 2 hours? Are they locked out? They sound like they're having a good time. And they are somewhere behind my house. Perhaps I can see them from where I am.
I shrugged on my housecoat, went to my bedroom window and drew back the curtains. That's when I saw it. Steam. And the light that had been on ALL NIGHT shining in to my bedroom window, creating shadows on my wall. I KNEW the moon wasn't THAT large tonight!! There was much laughing, some talking and through the sliding glass door to the home directly opposite mine across the alley, I could glimpse the remnants of a good night. There were two empty liquor bottles - 40ozs. There were innumerable cans of soft drink. As I stood, taking it in, coming to full wakefulness and realizing these people had been at it for nearly five hours (ps - isn't that unsafe? To be in a hot tub for that long!?) my mind boggled.
I got back in to bed and lay there, seething. I was beginning to hate these people behind me. As far as I've been able to tell, the fellow that bought the place is single. He likes grilling and Hockey. Up to this point, I'd never seen a girl there. Always just his buddies. Well, usually just one buddy. I was beginning to think he was gay. When he bought the house nearly a year ago, he completely renovated the kitchen. I guess it was already time for an update; the house had been built nearly three years prior. After kitchen completion, he built a marvelous deck, bought some plants, put up a fence and installed a hot tub. Until this morning, I had never seen anyone in it. In the whole of 7 months, no one has ever set foot in that thing.
As I turned over and tried to concentrate on another sound, my mind wandered to the options I was now presented with to stop the racket and (maybe) deter this from happening in the future. I could open the window covertly, leave the blinds shut and shout out to them...preferably using an accent so they'd never know it was me. Not that I have ever spoken to them before. That won't work. They'd likely not hear me over the laughs and chatter they're having. Okay, option 2 would be make several snowballs and lob them over the fence. Pros to this plan are I have good aim, I'd like land one in the hot tub and could possible hit the siding behind it, it's kind of funny when you think of it, they're drunk and it would likely scare the hell out of them. Cons would be the ever present con to a snowball being thrown blindly at people you don't really know: it could contain a rock which would in turn manage to poke someone's eye out. Also, they could start throwing them back. That won't work. Well, Option 3 would be to call the police. But it's already 5am. So what are they going to say? Is there a noise ordinance that they are violating? I mean, people who have to get up at 5am and go to work make tons of noise and I never complain about them. Likely, though, it's because I too am getting up at 5am to go to work. Okay, so let's say they are breaking some law or the other. If I call the police, what will I say? "Hello, I am just calling as my backdoor neighbours are making quite the racket. It's been going on for the last 3 hours I've only just realized what it was though. The address? Well, that's the tricky bit, I don't really know if you come down [my street] all the way to the end - it's a cul-de-sac - you can get in to the alley from there. It'll be on your right hand side, roughly five houses up from the start of the alley. The street name? Well, having never had occasion to go down that street and owing to the fact that all the streets are named [street name] but with a different suffix - you know, Road, BLVD, Street - I can't say for certain what it is. A joke? No, this is not a joke, sir..." That's how I envision the conversation going.
Well, it's been about 6 minutes, I am now fully and completely awake. I suppose there is no going back now. The only option I can see working would be to get up for the day, start my morning, write a ranting blog about the situation and cross my fingers I can get a nap in later today.

Elsie P

PS - If you rowdy hot tubbers are reading this, last night/this morning was your one free pass. As soon as it's light out, I WILL find your street name and house number. I WILL post it on a post-it in my home office and next time this happens, I WILL phone the police or bylaw services or at the very least, unleash an arsenal of snowballs upon you that I will have stored in my backyard.