educated wife Wong Foo Fat , and their three young sons--walked into their new abode and began to schwitz . Then it happened . They turned on their air conditioners . I heard them . I heard the whirring . I heard the sound which would permeate my home life in the manner of the pounding heart in Poe ’ s “ The Tell-Tale Heart .” Like roach motel denizens who check in and never check out , the Muldoon-Fats turned on their air conditioners and never turned them off . I informed Pepe that I would wage a war to the death to silence the machines . The air conditioners assured me in no uncertain terms that this war was necessary . His response : “ You are my wife . Good-bye city life as I knew it .” When I complained to Coop Board President Gomorrah Horecock and Managing Agent Cruella Rob that the incessant whirring was preventing me from living in peace , they told me to move to the country . “ The Muldoon- Fats have the right to run their air conditioner 24 / 7 . We cannot help you ,” they said .
When I asked former Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Commissioner of Buildings Rick D . Chandler for assistance at a public event , they listened sympathetically and gave me the same answer . I brought my case to then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer when I saw him in the lobby of the City University of New York Graduate Center . Surely Spitzer could help a shaving cream spritzer . He listened intently before echoing everyone else and explaining that he was late for an appointment . All the human officials were failing to help me . It was clear that I would eventually have to plead my case directly to the air conditioners themselves .
Why would Spitzer care about Liam ’ s insistence upon apartment frigidity when he was probably having a hot affair with a prostitute in a hotel ? I can certainly turn the situation into something analogous to a McLuhanesque treatise on hot and cool media . My theoretical acumen , however , would get me nowhere in the face of the law not being on my side . I could do nothing about the fact that the Muldoon-Fats were hell bent on their decision to fight rather than schwitz . Settling with them proved to be as intractable as solving the Israeli Palestinian conflict . What to do ? Simple . I became a Jewish Park Avenue co-op intifada fighter . I acted as if I were confronting terrorists intent on using a bazooka to topple the Empire State Building .
The intifada analogy is no exaggeration . I used Palestinian tactics in my own inimitable way . I escalated the attacks , progressing from shaving cream to mayonnaise . I brought out the Hellman ’ s to counter noise hell . One evening , when I was feeling exceptionally feisty , I used a ketchup and mustard combination . The door said that this pairing was especially tasty . Even though the mayonnaise could not raise her cholesterol because doors do not have triglycerides , she still preferred the more healthful mustard . Move over Jackson Pollack . While on the subway , I contemplated how best to make the Muldoon-Fats ’ congenial door resemble a Subway sandwich . The incessant beat of the whirring air conditioners went on . I was obsessed . I had to murder the air conditioners . I would do so without even telling them why their end was necessary . Intent upon committing air conditionericide under the cover of darkness , I stepped on to my terrace , turned on the hose , and pointed it right into the offensive mechanistic maw . I didn ’ t care about the air conditioners ’ lives and rights . I didn ’ t care if I destroyed my own apartment via death by water air conditioner leak . I didn ’ t care if I had to empty the entire Croton Reservoir into the Muldoon-Fats ’ air conditioner . After a half hour Niagra-esque assault , although it wasn ’ t really dead , the living room air conditioner was very sick . The whir whir was now a mere wh wh wh ir ir ir . I exalted in the relative new found quiet . The air conditioner was not so happy . She explained that she was just doing her job and I should not try to drown her . Self-