I can’t take a nap to save my life. Any sleep I want to get better be had at night because once the sun comes up, I’m screwed. I live two buildings down from a busy street in Chicago, which by seven in the morning is alive and filled with traffic. Loud traffic, too. There are all sorts of buses and semis driving by, which are not only obnoxiously loud, but also, cause the foundation of my building to shake. It doesn’t help that I’m right around the corner from a stoplight, which supplies plenty of slamming on the brakes and peeling out when the light turns green.

All of this might be tolerable, were it not for the fact that there are currently five new construction projects taking place on my street. Hours upon hours of hammering nails, jack hammering concrete, hammering nails into recently jack hammered concrete and then jack hammering that again until you run out of things to jack hammer forcing you to turn the jack hammers on other jack hammers. I think there’s a construction company in town right now called, We Ruin Naps Construction. Naps is spelled K-n-a-p-s, because it’s family owned. They’re a spin-off of the larger construction firm, Park Our Giant Dumpsters On Your Street and Take Up All The Good Parking Spots & Sons.

On a recent attempt at a nap, I was able to tune out the traffic and construction long enough to start dozing off, when I was instantly awakened by a high school marching band. Did I mention I live near a high school? Oh yeah. It’s located at the intersection of Slam On Your Brakes and Peel Out. If the kids letting out of class at 2:00 isn’t enough to keep me from sleeping, all I have to do is wait twenty minutes for a seventy-five-piece brass band to start playing the same shitty fight song over and over.

I’m currently in discussions with a company that makes soothing sleep sound CD’s, to sell them my new track, ‘Construction, Street Traffic, and Mediocre Marching Bands’. I’m also in negotiations with the city to have all air traffic re-routed directly over my apartment. If I can figure out a way to have my neighborhood’s air raid siren moved right outside my bedroom window, and get the testing changed from two times a month to three times a day, I think I’ll finally be able to get some sleep. To support me and my quest for a nap, please drive by my apartment any time you know I have the afternoon off work, and honk your horn a couple of times to show you care.

30/10/2006
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