The Girl Next Door

This is my episode of ‘Mythbusters’.

The likes of Drew Barrymore and Sandra Bullock have been described as the ‘girl next door’, i.e. a member of the female species to which ideals – sweet, cute, completely untouched by erotic dispositions – have been projected onto. The kind of lady you introduce to your mother. She’s pretty, in a non-intimidating way. You’ve fantasised about her while desperately wishing she were your girlfriend. Sometimes, you stalk her, from afar, via Google and Facebook.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I searched to find that the girl next door wasn’t Jennifer Aniston. She wasn’t cute like Drew Barrymore, nor did she bear any resemblance to Sandra Bullock. At all. Sandra Oh? – Maybe. Rosanne? – Probable. Frida Kahlo lookalike? – Awaiting ‘monobrow’ affirmation – Positive.

The locality of the ‘girl next door’ is anywhere but next door. In fact, she doesn’t live anywhere close to you. The term is merely a ‘Decepticon’, inasmuch as it deceits. Maybe I’m wrong. MAYBE, you’re Hugh Hefner, just maybe, you’re the real life Jerry Maguire currently married to Rene Zellwegger. Perhaps you live in Bel-Air, but most of us don’t. The term should be changed to what it appropriately describes: ‘the girl you wished lived next door’.

In reality, the girl next door is possessive of her wireless Internet and also owns a black cat. Every time I’m walking into my apartment block, her bloody cat pops out of nowhere, scares the living crap out of me, then sits in front of the door wanting to come inside. After I’m done shitting my pants, I let the cat in – no questions asked. Did I feel like murdering the cat? – Yes. But did I kill it? – No. After all, the good book does say, “love thy neighbours’ cat”, or something. It also says, “allow thy neighbour to use your wireless Internet”, or something.

From time to time, I used to ‘borrow’ my neighbour’s WI-FI. At first, it was easy to connect – 4 out of 5 bars of signal strength and high-speed bliss, with my laptop comfortably positioned on my coffee table. Over time, however, the robust connectivity slowly depleted. I was forced to peel myself away from my usual seated position to the other side of the table, just to get two bars. Later on, I had to sit, cross-legged on the floor, barely breathing to keep still, just to maintain a single bar of signal strength to check my email while it flickered on and off like a candle in the wind.

Finally, there was no signal strength at all. I tried everything to get it back. I crouched down in the corner of my lounge like a hobo, stooped down low, reached up high, upside-down dog pose, Sun Salutations, even balanced in the sacrificial lotus pose reaching my short arms as high up as possible, offering my computer to the Mahayana sun – but nothing. Nada. I don’t get it. I really thought there was something between us; remember how we smiled at each other in the hallway? You wanted some sugar and I gave you mine? I even cleaned up after your cat when it left a ravaged pigeon on my welcome mat. Yet you’ve taken away from me one of the most intrinsic things in life: YouTube research.

In truth, I am just like the girl next door. When your floorboards mysteriously began to buckle…it was me! (*Insert evil laugh here*). When you wondered what cosmic force caused the skirting to detach itself away from your walls…it was me! I am the culprit whose water pipe burst in the middle of the night, whilst I was sound asleep dreaming of my little ponies and rainbows. I caused a flood so destructive that it not only ruined my own apartment, it consequently destroyed the flats underneath, opposite, and both directions on either side of my place.

So you ask, what acts of neighbourliness did I do to amend this problem? – I hid. I refused to answer doorbells. From nice-Asian-girl-by-day, I turned into Osama-lives-in-a-cave-by-night! I snuck out of the building, inconspicuously, with hat, and fake moustache, plus trench coat. I Moonwalked stealthily out of my apartment, all the way down the stairs, out the door, everyday, until the inevitable phone calls to insurance companies were made.

To make matters worse, I cook. And sometimes I cook badly. I burn things and set the fire alarm I didn’t know I had off. The blizzard of sound dispersed through the building for twenty minutes as I searched high and low for its source, until finally, I found it, hidden behind a wall of cobwebs but by that time, it was too late, the aroma of burnt food already seeped into your lounge where it’ll linger for days, and the noise of the siren already woke you. You’re lying in bed, flabbergasted, wondering, who the hell cooks steak at one o’clock on the morning? – The girl next door. It was meeeeee!

And in the silent of the night when the apartment isn’t flooding and the chicken isn’t burning, the girl next door doesn’t sleep. She listens to music, watches Sex and the City, and types, on her typewriter -*TACK TACK TACK* – all at the same time. She is tone deaf, and also sings. When it’s time to pull out the bins, she forgets. She loves Tina Turner and isn’t afraid to stomp like it, “Rolling, rolling” like Proud Mary all night long.

The girl next door isn’t Alyssa Milano, nor she is sweet or cute. She is more like the sound of music from a grandfather clock drilling its *tick tick tick* into your forehead while you try to sleep, always there to remind you, oh so blatantly, that your neighbour is, essentially me – the girl you wished wasn’t next door.

A thousand apologies.