Bang Bam Boom

It began when I was building a set of drawers I bought from IKEA.

I had to hammer in some nails, but being that I did not have a hammer I found a good hard book and began pounding in the nails with my fist, through the book. I thought nothing of it until someone banged really hard on the floor below me.

Oh my god, I completely forgot that someone was living below me! And here I was at 12am making loud banging noises. No wonder they pounded on the ceiling. I felt like an ass!

I really didn't want this to become "a thing" between two faceless people with a growing resentment of the other, so I owned up to my mistake and wrote the person a note, which I slid under the door to their flat. It said:

"Dear (Room#),
I am so sorry about the noise last night. I really hope I didn't wake you up, but if I did I owe you a good strong drink. It's the least I can do.
Love (my Room #)"

That whole day I hoped that they got my note, and that this person wasn't seething in their room, sleep deprived and cranky. But I got no response from the resident of the room below me.

However the next morning, I found a note slipped under my flat's door. It read:

"Dear (Room #),
Haha! You did wake me up, but it's okay! I just had to bang on the ceiling, though. So I will take you up on that drink sometime!
Love, (Room#)"

I was relieved that the person below me wasn't pissed and evil. But I realize that I had just asked some unknown person out for a drink. Judging from the handwriting, I suspected the person below me was a girl, but for all I know some huge, sweaty, pimple faced boy was happily accepting my offer of a free drink. So I wrote one more note:

"Dear (Room#),
So uh, who the hell are you? I just realized we've never met and I have no idea who you are. My name is Rachael, and here's my email if you want to look me up on facebook or something. Or just stop by!"

Yesterday, two very sweet girls showed up at our front door and introduced themselves as our downstairs housemates. The girl below me is REALLY cool, and I really want to get to know her better. She asked about what I was doing that made so many loud noises and I told her about the IKEA stuff, which inspired her to look them up online and consider ordering some drawers too. I offered to help build them for her... it's the least I could do, right?

"I am so glad you're a girl," I said to her. She laughed,
"Yeah, I could have been some big scary guy who came up here to yell at you for making all that noise."
"You could have paid some guy on the street to come up here and harass me, you know..."
"Oh my god, I should have done that," she said. "Hm, will you be here tomorrow night around, say 6? I mean, no reason, just asking..."

And so what could have been a silent hateful situation turned into what I hope is a potential friend. (As an aside, she's really cute and is kinda my type too.) And FINALLY we know some other people who live in our building. So I guess in a way, it was a good thing that I decided to build IKEA furniture at all hours of the night.