With Neighbors Like These, Who Needs Cable TV

First off, my title almost rhymes, and for that, I am somewhat proud of it. That pride is more akin to that of a parent who’s child makes straight D’s in school, but then, beams with pride when said lackluster student brings home a C-. That kind of pride. I’m not proud of my lack of a point with three sentences behind me already in this post, with one of them poorly worded and slightly run-on. (make that two)

I suppose it would be good of me to give you some sense of what my new dwelling is like here West of the Ashley River, or as locals know it: West Ashley, West Trashley, West Ashtray, or Slightly-South-West-of-the-7th-most-crime-ridden-city-in-the-USA-ly. (Trying to keep the rhyming goin) Ok, the last few there aren’t entirely accurate, and the Crime in North Charleston is isolated to certain areas, areas that you should probably not even drive through, ever.

Our apartment is very nice. But, being as we are both not rich, i.e. somewhat poor, we have opted not to sign up for Cable TV. Our interweb service is provided by Bellsouth (or At&t, rather), through DSL Direct, so we don’t have to have a phone line. We have yet to get a bill for this service, and I can’t log into the online account…so we’re kind of just waiting for our internet to just shut down. Who knows. But we do not have cable anything. Internet, phone, or Television.

This really isn’t too much of a problem, as both of us watch NBC, ABC, and PBS exclusively. (I do miss the Discovery Channel occaisionally, but not enough to deal with Comcast, nor enough to pay for VH1, MTV, Lifetime, INSP, E! (The Soup being the only exception there), and a plethora of other channels I never ever watch). But, as one would know, the true entertainment of Cable Television lies not within its content, but within the power of the individual to scan through 100 different shows a minimum of 5 times to come to the conclusion that “I might as well just leave it on the all day marathon of Flavor of Love with Flava Flav.” This is how civilizations crumble.

Nevertheless, this source of entertainment must find its replacement, when it is wrenched from the clasps of one who so relied on it. Which brings me to the title of the post, and its poetic mastery that I babbled on about in the first paragraph.

Right outside of our apartment (we’re on the second floor) is the complex pool/hot tub. While the interior of our domicile (legal term, and vocab word from Claims Investigation) remains virtually soundproof to the outside world, once on our Balcony, you are treated to entertainment that only MTV, or the Hills can rival (Are those two things the same thing? I can’t tell anymore). It would seem that the persons who occupy the hot tub and whose voices carry to our apartment balcony, have plenty to talk about with each other - every second of it mindless, every second of it drivel, every second of it commercial free and amazing.

Take, for instance, this conversation between a man and two “ladies” in the hot tub:

man 1: hey there, do either of you two know a good masseuse in this complex.

female 1: we actually don’t live here, sorry.

man 1: aww man, that sucks. My rotator cuff has totally be buggin me out.

female 2: I used to go to a realy good masseuse at Wild Dunes.

man 1: sweet.

The girls go on to have this discussion with him, and then also give away the fact that they do actually live here. This is only a sample, as I didn’t want to risk embellishing the conversation as I remember it.

Also, the girls sound like every comedian’s impression of a dumb blonde - you know, the high slightly raspy/whispery voice, that manages still to be unbearably loud and obnoxious, just so you have the whole picture. The man is a regular in the tub, who is about 42, has a mustache that could kick Tom Selleck’s mustache’s butt, and looks 42. He tries similar “moves” on every female in said tub, and it would be sad if it weren’t for how succes…wait…no, it’s pretty sad.

So this is what I do with my time. I go biking, watch old Alfred Hitchcock movies, and spy on my neighbors. What’s better is there’s a big bush/tree in front of our balcony, blocking us from view of the hot tub, so we can hear everything, and they don’t know we’re there. It’s like if you were to take Rear Window, subtract the murderous husband, the apartment ridden and broken Jimmy Stewart (That would be me, again, but without a broken leg), and the brilliant cinematography. Also, throw in a dash of Laguna Beach.

One of these days I’ll take pictures of the set up here, so you can have a better visual idea of what I’m talking about.

~ by aeqvitas on June 7, 2008.