Introductions

Let me introduce you to two characters who will be featured shortly in upcoming posts regarding things I will and will not miss when I move out of halls at the end of this month.

Actually, one of them you have already met -- sort of. Or at least I have mentioned her on one or two prior occasions. I call her Pig-Squealer. As you might guess, her moniker derives from the fact that she can frequently be heard up and down the hall because her high-pitched voice seems to carry like a bad farm odour on the wind.

I don't begrudge her innate enthusiasm for seemingly all things, which I think is what causes her voice to rise the way it does and which is otherwise kind of endearing. It's just that voice I can't stand. Kind of like nails on a chalkboard, only instead of nails it's a dentist's drill. And not just on any chalkboard, but one layered with Styrofoam. Only it's as loud and insistent as a pneumatic jackhammer.

This, strangely, is a dramatic change from her usual speaking voice, which has all the sing-song lilt of a three-year-old on Christmas morning babbling excitedly to her new, retarded puppy.

The second flatmate I will call Angry Phone-Shouter. If I haven't mentioned her before, it's not for lack of annoyance factor; in those terms she ranks right up there with Pop Idol/American Idol/Canadian Idol (etc.) and strangers' farts in enclosed public spaces like elevators and buses. Relative to some of the others in the flat, however, she's perhaps not quite as obnoxious, which tells you how annoying they can be.

Another reason I may not have mentioned her previously is because she's a bit of a mysterious figure. I really have no idea who she is; it's possible I have never seen her. Given her accent I have a vague notion that she is Indian/South Asian; I'm not even sure it is a woman, to be honest. (It could be a man with a very high-pitched voice.) I have an inkling of whom it might be, since there is really only one or two that fit that description and who live on this side of the fire door. Which is odd, because if she is indeed the one I'm thinking of then she normally seems like such a quiet, shy, self-effacing type. Mind you, they're often the very ones you need to worry about most.

Once again you can fairly imagine the reason I have pseudonymously called her Angry Phone-Shouter. But to get the full effect you have to appreciate several facts about her 'conversations':

1. They take place in one of the Indian or South Asian languages, at high speed and high volume. Not unlike German, this particular dialect makes even the most harmless pleasantry sound like a harsh insult, particularly when delivered at high velocity.
2. My guess is she rarely utters harmless pleasantries.
   
3. They invariably occur late at night (midnight or thereabouts) or very early in the morning (around 7-8 AM), their stark contrast with your hitherto peaceful sleep enhancing the overall dramatic effect.
   
4. They are mostly monologues, or should I say harangues, of the type one would normally reserve to berate willfully snotty British bureaucrats, although how many of those are receiving calls at anything other than bankers' hours I do not know.
5. They are delivered with a force and conviction that is positively alarming, particularly as I imagine them emerging from such a small body. (Picture Linda Blair in The Exorcist, only instead of the gruff, burly devil's voice one hears the sound of 1,000 homicidal chipmunks on crystal meth, amplified through a tinny loudspeaker.)
   

I can only suppose that she is having an ongoing disagreement with her parents over something like school funding, her imminent career choice, returning to the homeland once her studies are complete, a doomed arranged marriage, or radically redefining her sexuality to challenge her deeply traditional/orthodox religious background. On a related theme, perhaps she is having a sustained tiff with a distant lover, a poor, half-deaf sadomasochistic bastard with a fetish for diminutive, bespectacled ball-busters. Or perhaps the woman is simply out of her flaming gourd, randomly spouting off into the ozone about nothing in particular, throwing raging wobblers every time she forgets to take her meds and the lithium wears off.

Thankfully, we may never know.

(Note to Kate: if you ever tell anyone else on our floor about the existence of this blog I will write something nasty about you, too.)