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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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December 2005 / January 2006 Contest Results |
The
Construction Men Cometh
By Joan Geary
Fitzwilliam, NH
The Construction
Men cometh -- at about 7 a.m. each day -- to bulldoze and bang their way
through my morning dreams. I try to ignore them. I hug the pillows to my
ears and throw the covers over my head in an effort to cling to my
sleep.
But these Nazis
of Noise, these Demons of Din, these Creators of Cacophony are too
strong for me. Eventually I surrender, abandon my bed, stand upright and
prepare to greet the day.
And then, it is quiet. They’ve gone away.
Perhaps to
search for a bite of breakfast or to catch Good Morning America. How
kind of them to ensure I would not oversleep.
I’ve tried to
outwit them. I’ve set the alarm for dawn, forsaken my morning coffee,
showered, dressed and waited triumphantly. And waited and waited and
waited... They never arrive.
Maybe this is
the morning they’re working for someone else; or driving their children
to school; or taking their dogs to the vet. I’ll never know. But, I enjoy
my day of peace until I collapse exhausted into bed at 7 p.m. -- my
consequence for attempting to outwit them. And I sleep, lulled into a
false sense of complacency -– until the morning, when it begins again.
I step out of
the shower, and there they are, carrying lumber back and forth outside
the bathroom window. I retreat to the bedroom to dress, and they hold
their morning meeting outside the bedroom window. I take a business call
on the phone in the living room, and they drive the bulldozer to that
window, abandon it and leave it running.
Their trucks hum
and roar; their hammers tap-tap-tap; their saws whirr; their drills
grind; their cellphones ring and ring, each with a different melody.
Their delivery men arrive with supplies, and they stand so close to each
other that Velcro could not unite them more, but they scream at the top
of their lungs in conversation.
Their wives show
up, their children appear, the neighbors stop by to admire their work,
other of their clients drive in and out all day. The noise is deafening,
and I am frazzled, so I meditate and practice my mantras: “Shut up, I
hate you, go away.” Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat.
And then, it
dawns on me. Someone is paying them to do this to me. Who have I
offended so much that they hate me and have now fiendishly plotted to
take their sweet revenge? Or could it be just an elaborate Candid Camera
set-up? Or maybe, it’s bad karma -- a fitting payback for a previous
lifetime spent littering the world with bad rap music, perhaps. I
shudder as I realize that I, who have now learned to detest noise so
passionately, will most likely spend my next incarnation as a deaf mute.
Without warning,
once again, it is quiet. I test my hearing to make sure I have not
already become impaired. But the neighbor’s rooster is screeching and my
cat is whining. All is right with the world.
I venture outside cautiously and am struck by how quickly progress is
being made on the property. Soon the house will be beautiful. Soon my
nemeses will be gone for good. And much like Buddhist monks, Christian
mystics and Simon & Garfunkel, I, too, have learned to love the Sounds
of Silence.
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