When I was in college, I had this neighbor in the dorms named Sarah. Sarah wasn’t evil, just… loud.
Every night she’d blast music at 1 or 2 a.m., usually when I had an early class. No matter how many times people asked her to turn it down, she’d laugh it off and say, “Relax, it’s college.”
One night before a big exam, I was desperate for sleep. I knocked on her door around midnight and asked politely if she could lower the volume just a little.
She smirked, said
“Sure,” and then cranked it even louder. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, absolutely fuming. The next morning, after my exam, I decided I wasn’t going to let it slide.
Sarah was notorious for sleeping in late usually till noon and she hated mornings more than anything. So for the next week, I set my alarm for 6:30 a.m. sharp, right when the hall was dead quiet, and placed my Bluetooth speaker against the thin wall we shared.
I blasted the cheesiest pop songs I could find, think bubblegum boy bands from the early 2000s. The first day she stumbled out of her room, groggy and furious. By day three, she started begging me to stop.
I just smiled and said, “Relax, it’s college.”
Funny enough, after that week, her late-night concerts mysteriously stopped. She never admitted defeat, but the silence was golden.
