Before attending to normal everyday grooming habits or feeding yourself a hardy breakfast, there are a few early morning duties you are required to fulfill as a responsible upstairs neighbor.

First thing upon waking, you want to start opening and closing drawers with a wild fervor, ensure a good slam before moving on to the next drawer.

Have no concern for the integrity of the furniture, it can always be replaced and any structural damage can always be fixed. If you have enough energy, and hopefully you've been exercising regularly, try to stomp your feet up and down while slamming the drawers.

This creates a subtle, but complex layering of loud noises that will thoroughly confuse and startle your downstairs neighbor. Obviously the earlier you start all this the better.

The goal is to wake them up in the middle of a deep sleep and with a jolt, startle, or confusion so great that they will immediately begin to worry.

It's important to note that you may never get to see the fruits of your labor. For all the hard work and man hours you contribute to this new endeavor, the highest of callings, you will never actually get to see your downstairs neighbor slowly slip into the depths of a slow-burning insanity.

Unless, and this is important, you become such a thorough and relentless noisemaker that they are driven to that last act of desperation, the confrontation. When you hear that knock on the door, that aggressive pounding, know that your neighbor has succumbed to hatred and you have accomplished everything a noisy upstairs neighbor is meant to accomplish with near perfect execution.

Moving on, never forget to include variety in your noisemaking routine. If you have anything that you feel comfortable dropping, over and over, do it. Even if there is a chance it might break. Crashing sounds are important and the experience is simply underdone and lazy if not enough of them are included in the process.

Remember, lamps and dinnerware are replaceable. Try shopping your local thrift store to stock up on these items. Shoes are a great choice and should be flung at random and repeatedly. Bottles, all sorts: liquor, beer, wine, glassware in general, rely on it.

Remember while all these things are being chucked in the air and crashing on your floor, stomp, in fact, never stop stomping. Focus on high-knees and a solid follow through when connecting with the floor. Put your heart into it.

For a true touch of professionalism, high grade, super-charged noisemaking, make your downstairs neighbor break the lease and move to the country noisemaking, doors make all the difference. Slam them. Shut them. Slam them again.

Oven door.
Dishwasher door.
Closet door.
Bathroom door.

The door to your actual apartment is probably the largest and most sturdy of the doors and should be slammed casually and with great frequency.

As your experience increases with time, so will your technique and confidence. Athletes refer to it as "in the zone," where you tune everything else out and your body and mind fuse as one, moving without command, simply knowing.

Stomp.
Shut.
Slam.
Drop.
Fling.
Chuck.
Jump.

It becomes a strange symphony of sabotage in which no downstairs neighbor in the entire world has even the smallest hope of peace and quiet, let alone sleep.

It's true that you'll be mainly using the old bones of your apartment to do this job. However, don't rule out any options to take it to the next level.

Your downstairs neighbor will be creating fantastical stories and imagery of all the incredible things you're doing upstairs to make so much noise.

They will wake in anger and go to bed in fear. At work their conversations will revolve around you and how horrible a person you must be for being such an inconsiderate bastard. They will suspect you of using bowling balls, circus animals, even of practicing automotive repair or tightrope performance, if you can believe it.

You will be painted in the portraiture of the dastardly villain, grotesque in behavior and appearance, your secret identity built up only to be smeared and tarnished, the embodiment of a soulless uncaring miscreant.

And of course, all of this, is A-okay because, in the end, it's not not true.

Moving on and to complete this brief lesson, always, without exception, respond with absolute denial when confronted face-to-face.

A gasp is good.
Outright shock is better.

When you open the door and they explain to you the situation, look around as if you're also searching for the source of all this noise. You are on their side and are now just as concerned about this unacceptable godforsaken racket. Begin a brainstorm in which the two of you become chummy over the possibilities, over the mystery of this predicament.

Also, beware of a common tactic, in which the downstairs neighbor attempts to play the role of protector, feigning concern for you while concealing their true purpose of investigating your indecency.

"Is everything all right up here?" They will ask.

"Are you okay? We heard some very disturbing noises," they will inquire. "Oh yes. I'm quite sure it came from your apartment. There could be no other way."

Politely tell them that you are not only more than perfectly fine but that you just so happened to be sitting down to a perfectly quiet and quite noiseless cup of tea.

Say things like, "Oh. I don't think it came from here. That is very unusual, though. I wonder if it was those people next door." Or "Oh no. I'm so sorry. I don't think it could have been us. You see, we haven't been doing anything but watching television and laying about."

Lies of course. All lies. And what's more, this will really hurt them where it counts. They know it's you. You know it's you. And that is where the story ends. They hold no power over your activities or level of noisemaking.

All they can do is buy another pair of earplugs off the internet and hope that somehow, someway, this new pair will do the trick. And that, my friends, is how you become a horrible, noisy, upstairs neighbor.

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