Oh I Here The Train A'comin....

Oh, I hear the train a’comin…it’s comin’ round the bed and oh, oh Johnny do I ever hear that train! I mean, how can I miss it. It passes by my new apartment with the consistency of a telemarketer, a constant onslaught of ringing and whooshing and sweet madness rains down and the head is a storm of thunder and lightening and how I managed to sleep last evening is a miracle of Biblical proportions. Water into wine ain’t got nothing on me. And there it goes again, a spike into the brain pounding and pounding. I want you folks back home, or anybody reading this for that matter, to go to your kitchen and find your favorite pot. Make sure it is a large one. Something you could put an entire turkey in should that be your fancy. Okay, now grab a large sledgehammer. What, you don’t have a large sledgehammer? Okay, wander on down to your nearest Wal-Mart and pick one up pronto. They can be found in the stuffed animal sections. Now drive back home to your pot and place that pot on your head. I want smash the sledgehammer into the pot that now rests upon your head. Repeat this act about 300 times. If you are not unconscious you should hear a terrible ringing in your ears. This is what I am made to live with. That sound of the sledgehammer coming down on the pot, that loud sound between a bell and a gong, is blasted into my room every five minutes. You want another little science experience of comparison? Purchase 700 alarm clocks and set them all to go off at the exact time. Place the clocks around you so that no area is left uncovered. Now, lay back and wait for magic time when all 700 alarm clocks bleat bleat bleat in that annoying tone reserved only for alarm clocks. They have to make it annoying, right, so that you want to get up and turn it off. A bubbling stream alarm clock or the wistful wind alarm clock would not bring in high market shares. But 700 annoying tonal beeps alarm clocks does not do my loathing justice because I only made you do it once. You did not have to listen to this terrible musical monotony 12 times an hour until your head cracked and out flees your brain trying to escape the prison of torture you encased it in.

Did I wrong this company in another lifetime to be placed here by the tracks? I laugh now when I think I told the guy who moved me in yesterday that the train wouldn’t bother me as I had lived by the most of my life. If it were only the trains going by, even as much as they currently do, I would be fine and, in fact, it would be peaceful bliss compared to what I am having to put up with. Paul Simon wrote that everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance but Paul, what do you think about ringing crosswalks next to your front door? I have timed this sound. It rings, as I said, about every five minutes and is extremely loud for 36 rings and then somebody that works for the city must have had some sense because the ringing is then muted (although by no means enough) for another 50 rings until the train passes and then the sound cuts mercifully off for another five minutes until you repeat the insanity. Sometimes you don’t get five minutes of silence because another train is coming in another direction so the ringing stops for a few seconds and kicks up again. This is the most frustrating of the rings because you have been robed of those five minutes you were looking forward to because maybe, just maybe, you make it to sleep before the next round of dinging!

ARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!!

It is really a concentration breaker and any thoughts of writing something, anything, even this post, are going to be difficult. I generally need silence when I am trying to put something down on paper which is why I write late at night but, man, if they are trying to test my will up there they are doing a damned good job. There she goes again. Ring. Ring. Ring. I’d take a room full of 10 Todds snoring over this!


Here's my apartment complex. My place is the one in the lower corner by the bike rack.


This is the place next door. This place, I think, belongs to a family and is not another apartment complex. I believe this is what passes for mansions here in Japan. It is a small comfort to know that the rich have to endure the same ringing annoyance that I do.


Here they are, the foundation of torture. These tracks are just across the road, only a few feet away, and upon them whoosh by trains from the nearing station. Wikipedia tells me that 37189 people use that station each day...JUST this station! That's a lot of trains!


Oh but this, this my friends is the implement of my mental breakdown if every I saw one. Here is the crossing signal that unleashes the terrible sound over and over and over again. There it goes again, like it knew I was talking about it. I apologize, oh God of the Crosswalk for casting such disparaging remarks on your ringedness! I shall appease you in the morrow by placing dead cats at your feet if you please just shut up!


Wouldn't you know it? As I was taking the above photo the bitch of a signal started to moan and groan and then came the train.

Maybe you readers think that I am over exaggerating in my normal fashion and that things are not as bad as I say. (There it goes again) There is no way somebody of sound mind would build an apartment complex so close to something so aggravating, right?




WRONG!

As you can see, my place is just as close in proximity to the tracks and screaming crosswalk as I said. How dare you doubt me! :p


Farther up the road I found what could be an explanation for the loud ringing. I can’t read the sign but from the picture I say this is a popular spot for young children to become train track pancakes.




A small shrine next to the tracks, and this sign, seems to indicate that this place has caused a lot of death. I fell sad for those who have me their maker at the foot of these rails and I hope that I don’t join you as, if yesterday and today are any indication, that ringing hammering dinging gong sounding crosswalk at the tracks is eventually going to cause my skull to explode viscera all over this room. You will not take me down without a fight, crosswalk, and I will battle you to my death!

You see, I have a line from the Blues Brothers keeping me sane:

Jake: "How often do they go past"
Elwood: "So often you won't even notice"

There she goes again. Here’s hoping, boys, here’s hoping.