My dogs are kickin' ... ass! Or tap-dancing on the stone floor

Here's a message I received some time ago from a person in our University's Foreign Affairs Office.

----- Original Message -----
From: "...闽丽" <mailto:xxxxx@hotmail.com>
To: serge.gavenko @ mail.ru
Subject: A little noisy

> Hi sergy,
>
> I would like to tell you that the person who lives at your > downstairs, she said you walks
> all the time stepping hard. Is it possible for you walks
> quietly?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Regards,
>
> L<...>ly
>

I was flabbergasted and the deafening red heat of shame and new reality rushed up into my face... But then I smiled and let it go 'coz...

Now stop your caustic remarks about me eating too much and moving too little. "Yeah, yeah, Serge, that fat bastard, putting on weight like a hippo - now people have no choice but to complain about his fat @$$ to higher offices". Nothing of the kind. Yeah, I am stompin' and I am hompin'. But that's not the case. I need to tell ya my floor is made of stone - here in Fujian wood is expensive. And acoustic insulation is not that great. But the heroes of our todays's little story are right here -

I bought these little babies when traveling in Hainan - a beautiful island - Chinese Hawaii as it is called. I'd brought my cool wooden slippers back and tap-danced over the heads of my downstairs' neighbors - not being aware of this till that heart-breaking letter came around. Now I naturally respect the deserved rest of my neighbors and walk as loud as a mouse on a chilly night through a dark barn.

But what is interesting in this whole story - am I weird or something? - but I still think that a good neighbor could come up 20 stairs and talk rather than go all the way across the campus to the administrative building to complain. Duh, I looked like a shuffling unbearable bumpkin or something to these people. Hehe. I talked to the woman who lives 'at my downstairs' (like a good neighbor), and the answer was that 'since we had not been introduced (that's a proper high-class English society here) and it had not been a very big problem, so...' (she stopped at this 'so' probably meaning it's self-explanatory from here since it's quite natural to resolve these small household problems via the Foreign Affairs Office).

I am probably too hard on that lady anyhow, maybe I do look unapproachable and hard to deal with, or it's not easy for some people to deal with new folks or ...whatever. Just a funny thing about my wooden slippers. Tapping on the hard stone floor. I had a healthy laugh. Hope you smiled too.