Unorthodox Side Quest [OC]

On the night of May 17, I got some of the WORST sleep of my adult career.

Everything was going JUST fine at first. I had gone to bed around 11:30 with an alarm set for 8. Around 2:30 AM, however, something VERY rudely interrupted my rhythmic “honk-shoo”-s. 💤 The best way I can describe it is a mechanical BUZZING noise that resounded every 1 minute and 40 seconds for a span of roughly 3 seconds. Oh, and it was utterly EAR-PIERCING.

Once I confirmed that I was NOT in fact dreaming up this phenomenon, I found myself playing the main character in a real-life horror RPG. Armed with a flashlight and half-functioning brain, I set out to investigate the origin of the noise––Scooby Doo-style. 🧐 Eventually, I traced it back to a faulty AIR CONDITIONING UNIT on the ground beneath the bedroom window of my apartment.

With that part taken care of, all that was left to do was… well, figure out WHAT to do. Initially, I tried simply IGNORING the mechanical cacophony and going back to sleep. Unsurprisingly, this did NOT work. Next, I tried wearing ear plugs. Yet that only served to AMPLIFY the vibrations coming from outside… >:(

I then called the emergency maintenance line for my apartment complex. Technically, my situation didn’t QUALIFY as an “emergency”––as defined by the line’s pre-recorded message. But given that my situation was a literal WAR CRIME––as defined by official commentary on Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention, I reasoned that my call had legal standing. That said, NOBODY answered the phone. Defeated, I left a voicemail and later passed out on my couch. It was 5 AM by this point.

Long story short: The noise lasted WELL after sunrise, and it wasn’t until I got home from church that the air conditioning unit had FINALLY shut the crap up. But at least the gates of hell did NOT prevail that day. ✞