The 4am unnatural alarm clock

If you don’t laugh at a 4 am push-started car with a hole in the exhaust, you might just push yourself into madness. My mother asked me one morning how I cope when my neighbour‘s son owns the loudest broken car known to humanity. And this after staying over for one night.

Agreed, there are certain universal alarm clocks: roosters, church bells, babies. And then there is my neighbour’s son’s car. It does not merely start.

It announces itself. Every morning at 4 am sharp, I am woken by the sound of what can only be described as a wounded tractor being strangled by a leaf blower. Not angry shouting.

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Encouraging shouting. You guessed it. The car must be push-started.

Once the car starts, it enters phase two: the exhaust solo. There is a huge hole somewhere in that exhaust system and the sound it produces is hair raising. I’m fairly certain tectonic plates shift slightly when he revs the engine.

Birds evacuate trees. Somewhere, blocks away, a dog files a noise complaint. Coping, I have learned, is about acceptance and strategy.

“Maybe he won’t work tomorrow,” I whispered hopefully, after a few such mornings. This phase didn’t last, because he always worked. Every day of the week.

Phase two bred anger. I imagined myself calmly explaining decibel levels to him while holding a slipper with intent.

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