No smoking, no sex — and always fold in the side mirrors

So someone had taken the trouble to have forms made to call drivers to order. “Park properly and become a valued member of society,” it says in the fine print. At the moment I’m still worthless because I haven’t folded my mirrors. The author, however, wants to help me to social advancement by giving them up. I’m really glad because then I won’t have to fold them either.

I recently moved back to the city and I’ve discovered that I’m not afraid of the city: There’s a lot of writing going on here. Quite atypical for the digital age, my world is suddenly full of notes. One is stuck next to my front door, another in my car, the next on my favorite tree.

Interestingly enough, no one is looking for an apartment, a babysitter, or escaped cats. No, the notes in my neighborhood are messages, appeals, appeals to the social conscience written under the guise of friendliness.

The couple who have just moved into the basement, for example, kindly ask you to refrain from smoking on the front steps (smiley), because the baby is smoking through the window to the street (sad smiley). To illustrate their injured innocence, the mother has painted red flowers on the paper. An understandable appeal which embarrassed my smoking neighbors and immediately made them give up smoking in front of the door.

I was touched by so much community spirit. And tried to remember what it was like when my children were small and still lived in this house. Ironically, it was in the basement apartment of the young parents’ house that a hardcore pothead lived who regularly produced large clouds of cannabis that crept into every corner of our bedroom and made it cozy. The man did not have much money, the grass he consumed was of inferior quality and smelled accordingly.

But did I ever complain? No. Neither about him, nor about the extended family barbecuing in the yard, nor about our techno neighbor who liked to party until noon. Nor about the large-footed Hobbits who lived above us and copulated just as loudly as they crazed furniture and endured home births. To grumble was considered in my circles as ungentlemanly and was perceived as a violation of unwritten laws. I practiced tolerance — in return, the household put up with my incredibly invasive children, who, by the way, were just about to come back to live with me, grumbling rap and screaming puberty. And still being tolerated with a smile.

The killer argument child

For me, consideration is always also a barter deal, a bilateral matter, a balanced deal at best. Sometimes I get on your nerves, then you get on my nerves. The welfare of the children, however, seems to be becoming a killer argument in my environment, and nothing can be done to counter it.

In the stairwell of my neighbors there is an anonymous reminder, but please refrain from smoking. And while I’m still thinking about whether they desire to smoke is not just as human as farting, crying, screaming or having sex, the following note arrives from Berlin, of all places, once the capital of making out:

“To the insufferable sex couple on the second floor. No one wants to hear your pathetic moaning, so close your fucking window.”

Even sex seems to be a disruptive factor nowadays that needs to be eliminated — in the name of the poor little kids, of course, who could be traumatized by it.

I don’t take drugs, I don’t smoke and I don’t keep our backyard busy with sexual escapades. I even have a certain talent for troublemakers myself. But I find it very disturbing that suddenly mostly young people are acting more bourgeois than my parents ever did.

Kindness, baby!

What is wrong with people? Why this desperation in the face of humanity? Is it the increasing stress that makes every second precious without a sound? Is it the envy of all those who, despite rampant functionalism mania, still indulge in unrestraint?

In the Corona crisis, prohibitions and rules are celebrating their great comeback, we are called upon to take more responsibility. But there have also been early aging scribblers before. They move to a trendy urban district and expect it to be like a small town. They have grown up with social media, communities and the neurotic compulsion to permanently evaluate themselves and others. Is that the reason why they exert such unscrupulous social pressure? On this passive-aggressive, always somewhat reproachful tour, which hides behind politically correct “Kindness”?

Such trendy chattering annoys me so much that I was almost relieved the other day when a very unfriendly old school psycho entered my life. I had parked my car in a parking bay in a short, correct, and traffic-compatible way, without folding the mirrors as usual. When I came back three minutes later, I found the following “business card” on my windshield:

“Hey, you park like shit! Next time I’ll kick your side mirror off. For real.”

So someone had taken the trouble to have forms made to call drivers to order. “Park properly and become a valued member of society,” it says in the fine print. At the moment I’m still worthless because I haven’t folded my mirrors. The author, however, wants to help me to social advancement by giving them up. I’m really glad because then I won’t have to fold them either.

You can now oracle what might be wrong with this poor person. Maybe he/she feels unnoticed, marginalized, and suppressed, restricted in his/her living space. Perhaps he has had bad experiences with car drivers. Maybe he is just an asshole.

Clash of life cycles

I am a simple soul and I see it this way: For most of us, life runs in manageable cycles, whether that is three, four or seven, can be read in the ancient Greeks. In each phase, the focus is on something else. In youth, we test limits and celebrate, in education and work we have to function and perform, when we start a family we want to care for and protect it, in old age, we fight against our invisibility and physical decay.

In each of these sections, we are quite good at blanking out the focus of our fellow human beings, which may be different in age. And this is where conflicts arise. You can then write notes and hang them up. But you could also revive a good old virtue: Putting oneself in others’ shoes.

As I write this, a dozen people have gathered in my backyard. They have been doing that every day since Corona, they live, eat and make phone calls there. Only two parties have access to the courtyard, which is green, a little enchanted — but above all, a huge resonance room. It’s 34 degrees in the shade, three children have been screeching for hours in a paddling pool. The smacking sound of their feet on the plastic floor and the splashing of the water are so supernaturally loud that I feel as if the pool is right in my bedroom.

I am annoyed. Closing the window is not an option. Neither is complaining.

Then I suddenly remember how my mother used to let us splash around in little plastic tubs on the freshly mowed lawn. How we used to run out into the street during thunderstorms and dance in puddles squealing with pleasure. How we cooled off in summer fields under huge bombs. I go back in time and put myself in the place of the small, screeching farm children. And the rage is gone.