crankylex | how not to win friends and influence people

I live in a two family house. I live upstairs, friends of mine live downstairs. We share a driveway with the house next door, which is another two family filled with people that -- you guessed it -- are friends of mine.

In the communal back yard, we have a huge covered patio. We have at least one 'official' party a month out there, with 'unofficial' ones cropping up in the interim. We always have them on either a Friday or Saturday night, because we tend to get Very Drunk.

We had a party last night in honor of the 6th wedding anniversary of one of the couples that lives next door. The party started around six, and by ten, only the grownups were left to play random drinking games. Someone dragged out an acoustic guitar and there was singing.

We have been having these parties for seven years, and no one has ever complained, mainly because we don't run around screaming. We talk, and laugh, and maybe strum a guitar or two, but nothing REALLY LOUD OR DISTURBING.

Until last night.

At about 11:30, a cop randomly appeared in the driveway and snarled, "If I have to come back here, you're all getting summonses (for disturbing the peace)."

Yeah, fuck you too.

The guy was a total hard ass about it, obnoxious and all power-trippy, like we were going to give him a hard time. This is ironic, and if you knew my friends, totally unnecessary because we are comprised of current and former EMTs (myself included), firefighters, police dispatchers, and employees of a little agency they may have heard of -- THE FBI.

I am annoyed, and I wish I hadn't been drunk off my ass so I could have gotten his badge number.

He claimed that he had gotten 'several' complaints (even though no one came out and said anything to us), which is possible, because new people moved in to the neighborhood last month. Of course, these were the same people that BORROWED OUR CHAIRS for their party two weeks ago, but whatever.

This is yet another reason why I hate people that aren't us.