Image source: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/dead-zombie-man-...

Hel asks

So my downstairs neighbour has a problem with my kids getting up in the morning and walking across the floor. The landlord has agreed to put some soundproofing down but it’s not happening fast enough for this ‘lady’ who comes screaming outside my door and banging her door.I’m done ignoring her now but there is not a dad in sight at her house - so what do now??

My answer

Might you suspect she's about to storm up to your apartment to scream that your offspring need to stop holding Riverdance concerts on your floor? Pre-empt her. Batter down her own apartment door. Scream that her own ancestors need to cut out their colossal ostentatious Indian dance routines on her ceiling.

When she asks what the hell you're talking about, waggle a fake joke shop skeleton dressed up in a three-piece tux, or whatever more convenient clothing you'd stolen from her wardrobe the night before. Screech at her that vast armies of her deceased ancestors are punching up through your apartment floor like a subterranean Thriller video, and How Dare She, and What The Hell Does She Think She's Playing At.

Screech at her anew that, it turns out, most of her deceased ancestors are fleeing her apartment. They uniformly scream that haunting a horrific bitch like her is worse than nosebleeds, and bear traps, and paper cuts, and gonorrhoea, and Gandhi. These skeletal legions of the damned now cower in your abode, desperate for sanctuary.

Indulge in a spot of ventriloquism, brandishing your apparelled skelly chum: "Your own barren womb, Young Lady," your ventriloquising lap-guest apparently informs her, "is most certainly no excuse to abuse your upstairs neighbour, and her ability to pupate genuine humans! Woo-whooo-ghost-noises! Apologise to her at once! Should you do this for a sufficiently large number of thousand times, over as many months, and I shall consider putting in a good word for you in Purgatory with your Great-Grand-Uncle Octavian Princeps, for I hear he may return your uterus. Then by all means exhibit your one-woman population bomb in cahoots with our upstairs hostess! Perhaps some tasteful scissoring? Oyster, m'Lady?"

Original: https://mikeyclarke.co.nz/blog/2022/5/ventriloquis...