My father warned me about living in the Old Port. Years ago he’d lived — briefly — in the French Quarter of New Orleans, until the all-night revelry outside his window made him move to a dull-but-quiet suburb. I was too enamored of my new neighborhood’s charm to listen. “But it has old-stone buildings,” I protested, “and Parisian-style cafes! It feels like living in Europe!” On summer weekend nights, however, the Old Port can feel more like a sleep-deprivation laboratory.

Do carousers who sing showtunes outside my windows at 3 a.m. realize that people actually live here? People with kids? Well, they soon will…

One of the benefits to having kids is that they spend their allowances on Super Soakers. I have three monster water guns filled and poised on the windowsill for anyone after-midnight songster who thinks my street is the Canadian Idol stage and that he/she is Celine Dion.

Related posts:

1. A Concerned Parent
2. Magic is all there is
3. Transit Strike Announced for May 22
4. Waiting in Line
5. The right to bare arms (or something like that)