Night Noises

“Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all, no, no…

I lay awake and watched until the morning light…”

~The 5th Dimension

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXq8FXwReN4

It has been a long arduous day… night has come and finally you have completed your pre-bedtime routine, inclusive of securing your doors ­and windows (so that "dat tiefing stray puss" cannot come in through them and bite up your bread or anything you happen to leave out on the kitchen counter).

You go into your bed which is nice and fresh considering you put on clean bed linen which still smells of the Island Fresh fabric softener…the temperatures are just right. Nature’s orchestra - the clicks and chirps of the singing insects or even the occasional distant croaking of the croaking lizard or gecko - plays softly in the background and soon you drift off to sleep and remain so for a while.

Now while you are in stage two of your sleep, you know at that point when you have been asleep for a while and your body temperature starts to decrease and your heart rate starts to slow down, you are jolted by:

“Woman mi seh physical beauty aside
Yuh a gyal full up a virtue an pride
A no like some a dem wa haffi walk an hide
Caw nuff a dem a roach wa haffi a run from pesticide…”

This is interrupted by a screaming man, who sounded as if he was about to have a Grand Mal seizure at any minute:

“HAAAAAAAULLLLLL AND PUULLL UUUUUPPPP….LAAAAAAAAAWD GUH DEH GYAL, GUH DE GYAL…Some gyal su-mell frownzy like wha’ but ef you know sey yuh su-mell nice hol’ up unooo haaanddd, hol’ up yu haaaaaaaaaaannnd LAAAAAAAAAAWWWDDD!!”

He continues to shout instructions throughout the remainder of the song even as “…Wa dem call mi, air freshener, call mi air freshener, Jeans an tees every day a wah mi fresh inna..” begins to play. I wonder, is this a carefully thought out segue way? Do the nice smelling girls have anything to do with using air fresheners??

Needless to say I am completely annoyed for being awakened from my sleep and worse aggravated by the thought that this country DOES have a Noise Abatement Act popularly known as “Night Noises Act”. Of course, the noise was not originating from my immediate neighbourhood and I had no clue WHERE it was coming from. The notion of calling the police to report the noise would have been pointless. Besides, we all KNOW what generally happens when you call the police to report things like these...I might be wrong, but, I think the only noise that the officers are quickest to respond to, KUDOS to them, is noise from gunfire.

It is surprising to think that under the Constitution, we are entitled to enjoy the quietude of our homes, without molestation. That some insist on being such a nuisance to others is just inconsiderate and plain WRONG!

This leads me to another point.

WHY oh WHY do motorists think it is okay to go to people’s gates and repeatedly BLOOOOWW their car horns at all ungodly hours of the night??!!

Very often I wish I had a tyre deflation device, you know, the spike strip! That thing with barbs that are designed to puncture and flatten tyres! I would operate it remotely for all the offending motorists who engage in that inconsiderate act mentioned above! Okay, first time you get off but on a second offense that’s it!

Spike Strip

There is no NEED for people to be honking their horns late at nights! Almost everybody has a cell phone. Hence, if you are going to pick somebody up, call them when you get to the gate and tell them you are outside. If you are afraid to be there a while then call them before you actually arrive at their gates so they will be ready. No need for the loud blowing! SHEESH!!

Also, if you call a taxi then please make sure you place your body at a point where you can see the taxi arrive and then you go outside to them. NUH MEK DI TAXI MAN OUT DEH A BLOW AND BLOW AND BLOW for you to come outside! It is ANNOYING!

For those who are not taxi men; who are not picking up anyone or in other words you are unexpected, just blow once. Then get out of the car and go and knock at the gate, use your car key, a coin or a stone. Please verify that it is a real stone because we have stray dogs around who use other people’s lawns as their personal lavatories and it is not nice to have the stone inexplicably crumble in your hand.

Perhaps it’s time to embark on a public education campaign. We need to inform the citizens of the tenets of the Noise Abatement Act and provide a few reminders of the Road Code…or just teaching some plain old etiquette would help.

How do you feel about night noises??