Sounds from the Basement

We rent the main floor of a cute little house, and someone else rents the basement floor below us. That someone we will refer to as Chuck to protect his anonymity for the purpose of this blog post. My Man and I actually do call him Chuck anyway so that when we talk about him he won’t know it.

Chuck is a tall and nice looking gentleman banker, about 35 years old. He has his own entrance and parking spot and all I know about him is what I have concluded from his mail which I peruse in our shared mailbox. Judging from his catalogs, he likes mountain bikes and camera equipment. Oh, and he likes video games. He likes to play games with the bass on max, I thought Atlanta was being invaded by terrorists until I realized that Chuck was playing some exploding gun video game downstairs.

Unfortunately, he has the same taste in music that I had when I was 9-bad 80’s music from one-hit-wonder bands (only without the Mariah and Amy Grant). There was that Friday when at around 2pm he put the song “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by Wang Chung on repeat. It was torture the first time. By the third time I was placing an order for these. I guess he was getting even with us for that night when My Man was singularly delighted by Kenny Rogers B-sides at 3am after a big night out.

Chuck has a looooongtime on-again off-again girlfriend. (The frequency of the violent video games and the loud bad music definitely increase when they’re off-again.) She is obsessed with her yappy Chihuahua and she’s not much of a smiler. And she certainly isn’t pretty enough to redeem for the fact that she treats Chuck the way a too cool teenage girl treats her annoying little brother. Usually my man and I just make stuff up about them-stories, conversations, speculations about their comings and goings, you know. But recently things have gotten pretty interesting.

The other night I was watching some DVRed reality show. Likely Sister Wives (guilty) or Giuliana & Bill. I think the reason I like reality TV is because it’s like listening in on other people’s conversations. All of the sudden I heard loud conversation coming from Chuck’s basement. I quickly turned off the TV to tune into the reality drama taking place downstairs between Chuck and his girlfriend. For about an hour I sat with my ear to the basement door soaking it all in. It was better than any reality television I have seen in a while.

The fight between Chuck and his girlfriend that night was absolutely epic. In one evening, they managed to cover every single base on the fighting spectrum:

Money

Sex

Commitment

Children

The Future

Chuck was making a surprising amount of sense. His girlfriend, on the other hand, is crazy. Here are some highlights from the girlfriend. I censored her dreadful language. Remember that these were all spoken somewhere between a scream and a yell:

• “So then what? We’ll just wait till you’re ready to get married. Pathetic.”
• “Damn it, Chuck. You are 30 effin 5. Don’t you think its time to get your s*it together and buy your own home! What are you effin waiting for”
• “So I assume you think we can have kids when I’m 40. By then your sperm will have dried up.”
• “No one is ever actually ready to get married. You just eff-ing do it.”
• “So you want our kids to grow up without a parent at home? You expect me to actually work when we have kids. By then you sure as hell better earn enough so I don’t have to.”
• “You lying piece of s*it. You don’t go driving around with a real estate agent unless you are actually going to buy a house you pansy.”
• “My friends think I am an idiot for waiting around for you. They tell me I could do so much better.”
• “You don’t know how lucky you are to have me. You don’t deserve me.”
• “Which one of your jackass friends is putting this s*it in your head? Your friends are pathetic.”

Verbatim. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. After a solid hour of drama, she slammed the door and her car reversed out of our shared driveway. I am really hoping he comes to his senses and ditches the zero.

Chuck. Break up with her. She treats you like crap. She emasculates you, bashes your friends, and constantly reminds you that she could do soooo much better. You can do better.

So Bravo and A&E, consider this a pitch letter for future programming. The show would be called Relationship Interventions. Friends, roommates, (or first-floor tenants) tape secret footage of relationships gone wrong. Then they intervene before it’s too late.

It’s not too late.

Team Chuck.