Member-only story
M for Empathy
Some years back, I moved into a new neighbourhood. Small, decent semi-detached house with two other neighbours. I moved in with an Alsatian & a Yamaha R1 with Toce exhausts. For the uninitiated, a Yamaha R1 is a 1,000cc super bike and Toce exhausts look like something out of Batman.
After two months of moving in, my neighbour, who had a baby, started complaining about the smell of my dog’s urine. Coming from a previous home where I lived in a detached bungalow, housing my large 7-year-old Alsatian dog in my new accommodation had been a challenge from day 1. So, I built a kennel behind the house and cleaned its excrements & urine 3 times a week with bleach but even with that, there were nights when the smell was so bad, I had to clean it at midnight to get a good night rest. Having experienced this, I had to do something about it when the neighbour began complaining incessantly and what I did was move the dog.
One fine morning a few weeks after that, I was heading out to work on my motorcycle when my sister (who lived with us) came to tell me that someone was complaining about the noise of my motorcycle. I thought she was referring to some construction workers that worked behind our house at a yet to be completed building,
“They are idiots,” I told her.
That construction crew had made our lives a living hell for weeks, clanging and banging…
