Insanely optimistic or just insane?

Insanely optimistic or just insane?

Have you ever had a 24-hour period where all sorts of stuff just started to go wrong, but none of it could negatively impact your mood? Between leaky ceilings, frozen locks, soaked socks, cold showers, freezing temps, non-stop snow, and general moving woes I really should be incredibly depressed right now. But I'm not!

I'm actually a pretty optimistic person. I wasn't always that way, but as I've grown older I've learned it's really not worth it to get too worked up over most things. The effort it takes getting upset is better directed at resolving whatever it is that you're upset about, right? man do I wish I'd known that when I was an angry young man / art student / English major.

Speaking of angry young men, while my cable guy was setting up my sweet, sweet internets the other day, some kids that share the courtyard with me decided to throw out their couch ... from their third floor balcony. Now, I've tossed shit off rooftops before, but back then a) I was young and an idiot and b) I threw shit into alleys while aiming for dumpsters. These kids threw their couch into an enclosed courtyard, directly onto my poor cable guy's ladder, totally busting it.

Of course they didn't tell us they did it. Instead, they did it and then scurried back into their apartment. Fair enough. If I was some young 20-something and had just busted up someone's ladder, the flight instinct would've probably taken hold of me as well, if we're going to be honest about it. I could understand that. What happened next completely floored me though. The cable guy figured out which unit housed the couch tossers, climbed up three flights of stairs, knocked on their door, and the conversation went something like this:

CABLE GUY: Hey bro, were you just throwing a couch downstairs?
NEIGHBOR KID: Yeah.
CABLE GUY: You broke my ladder, bro.
NEIGHBOR KID: What?
CABLE GUY: You broke my ladder. That's not cool.
NEIGHBOR KID: I don't think we broke your ladder.
Me thinking: It's pretty obvious they broke the ladder.
CABLE GUY: You did.
NEIGHBOR KID: Well, is it yours or the company's?
Me thinking: What difference does that make?
CABLE GUY: It's mine.
NEIGHBOR KID: Oh, sorry.
CABLE GUY: Well?
ME: (to neighbor kid) Hey, I've got to go to work can you lock the cable guy out when you're done talking?
NEIGHBOR KID: Whatever. Yeah. I mean, what?
ME: I've got to go. Can you lock the gate behind him.
NEIGHBOR KID: (shrugs) Whatever. Yeah.

So I leave. As I'm driving off I see the neighbor kid get into a buddies car ... and then see the cable guy leaving our backyard! Obviously the kid didn't lock the gate. I sat there for a minute, watched the poor cable guy snap a few shots of his busted ladder, then tie said ladder to the roof of his car, and drive away. I headed back and then locked the gate.

Now I'm not going to pretend that I was never as irresponsible as the neighbor kid was. I was. For sure. But it's so far removed from me now that seeing someone not only unwilling to make amends for a wrong done to another person, but also obviously totally unaware that they've even DONE something wrong just completely floored me.

Ah, welcome back to apartment living, Tankboy. Welcome back.