Anecdotally, the world conspires against days off.

[Guttercat]

Do we not all hope for peace and rest and silence on our days off? We work in a field that tests our mental resilience to intense and incessant sensory input for hours.

This is my afternoon off. I was looking forward to some peace before I head back into the trenches tonight. However, at this very moment, my neighbor is target-shooting with a high-caliber ballistic device. Simply put, he has a really big gun. A couple of years ago he admitted that the windows of his garage fell victim to the percussive force of that thing I call a member extension.

Every few minutes and at bone jarringly regular intervals... >Boom<. it like hitting the snooze-bar on alarm clock.>

I imagine those of you with small children face similar challenges on your days off. Or those of you with too many cats, or those of you who haven't disabled your landline.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

I have a roof deck for the apartment I live in now (trust me, it sounds way fancier than it actually is!). Anyway, one evening recently I was sitting outside reading magazine, enjoying a drink. There was a woman behind the building on her cell phone having an argument with someone (her significant other perhaps?). She was yelling loudly and her end of the conversation included an expletive every approximately 2-3 words. Given her apparent anger, and threats of violence towards the person on the other end of the line, I was not going to go down and confront her about her rather crude behavior.

[OyWithThePoodles, RN]

Or get a (de)humidifier, -either or- I have a huge de-humidifer in my basement and it is the perfect white noise to nap with. Drowns it all out.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I used to live in an apartment complex where they mowed the grass every week. Right under my window. During the day when I was sleeping (or trying to). The worst part was when they'd leave the mower running under my window, then go somewhere else with it after they took their break...and just as soon as I was asleep again, they came back and started mowing again. Drove me straight up the wall. I complained to the manager; I put a sign in my window that said "DAY SLEEPER---please keep quiet"; I even complained to the landscape company. All to no avail. Needless to say, we moved out of there as soon as we saved enough money to buy a house!