He Did It His Way
Right after he graduated from JMU, Jeremy got a job with a large healthcare company in Virginia Beach. He was making good money and decided that he wanted to get an apartment near the facility to which he was assigned.
He found a place just a few blocks from the Nursing Home and paid the deposit and the first month's rent on short term lease. It was a really nice place, two apartments shared a duplex. It was very clean and close enough to the facility that he thought he could walk or ride a bike to work.
When the day came to move him into the place, we loaded up my pickup with all of his stuff and drove to the new apartment. We unloaded the truck, unpacked some boxes and in short order the place was livable. The last thing we did was to hook up his television and stereo. We just sat and rested for a while when we finished.
As nightfall landed, the quiet complex changed. Groups of teenagers loitered on the streets. The noise level grew exponentially. His next door neighbors that seemed very friendly and mature when we were unloading started playing some “Boom, Shuka, Lucka” crap on their stereo, ( the stuff with a very heavy bass beat that is somewhat like music except it lacks rhythm, melody, or harmony ) and they had it up full blast. The walls in Jeremy's apartment were shaking. I asked him if he was going to be able to stand listening to that shit on a regular basis. I was ready to have a seizure and my patience was wearing thin. As thin as Ron Popeil's Dial-O-Matic could slice a tomato. Ron said that you could "Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side."
Jeremy told me to just relax that he could handle it. I asked him what he was going to do. He said
“I'll just crank up the Frank!” And, so he did. He put a Frank Sinatra CD in the stereo and turned it up to eleven! Blasting from the speakers:
I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all.
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you?
In less than a minute, the “Boom, Shuka, Lucka” stopped completely and Jeremy turned Frank down to two. It worked because he did it his way.
He didn't stay there long as he was soon promoted and transferred to another property. He and the neighbors were friends from that day on.