Boom. Boom, boom, boom … boom. Pause, repeat.

Boom. Boom, boom, boom … boom. Pause, repeat.

That is the sound of the bass, which is followed by voices — laughing, yelling, chatting — and Fergie belting out "Let's Get Retarded."

Despite assumptions, this isn't the soundtrack to a Friday night bash. If it were, this column wouldn't even exist, as Friday nights are when things like this should occur. Fergie should be belting out various dance tunes, and my walls should be shaking as a consequence.

But instead, these are the sounds that come reverberating through my bedroom wall between 6:30-7:30 a.m.

Let's not "get retarded."

I could understand 10 a.m. I could maybe even understand 9 a.m. But I really believe deep down in what is left of my fatigued, exhausted, broken soul that 6:30 a.m. is too early for the Black Eyed Peas.

The very last thing I want at 6 o'clock in the morning is to drag myself over to the neighbors' in my Skivvies and plead with them to turn down the music. I'd rather just pound on the wall — the last time I checked, that was the universal signal for: Please reduce the noise.

Apparently this isn't so universal, though, because the first time I knocked on the wall, the music continued without missing a beat. The second time, they did turn down the music, but only long enough to toss a few expletives my way.

This leads me to ask: Whatever happened to courtesy? Has it always been acceptable to play music that loud at any time of the day? I would think that in the 19th century, neighbors either turned down their phonographs when asked or the disagreement was settled with an old-fashioned duel. Maybe that's why things have changed — there's no more dueling. But perhaps that's exactly what we need — to throw down and resort to fisticuffs for a little peace and quiet.

The thing is, this disregard for others doesn't exist solely in music volume. It also occurs in the stacks of the Main Library every single day. When I'm engrossed in homework in the quiet areas of the stacks, the last thing I want to hear is the girl next to me answer her phone.

"Hello? Hello!? Oh my gawd, Lindsay. Rick was being such a total freak last night. I mean, totally … I know, totally …"

Be quiet Lindsay. Totally.

When I'm in the library, my phone is on silent, so that if Lindsay, by some freak chance decides to do her homework, my ring tones won't disturb her.

As though the library weren't bad enough, the movie theater is even worse. The last time I went to the movies, as Batman was about to send his nemesis into the great beyond, the guy in front of me whipped out his cell phone, in all its blue flashy light and disco ball glory, and started text-messaging his girlfriend. It's the climax of the movie. Your girlfriend cannot possibly trump Batman at this moment in time.

Incidents like this would normally be enough to keep me home from the movies, but since I can't seem to get a moment of silence in edgewise at my own apartment, I'll have to settle for the complimentary light show at the movie theater.

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive to noise, and light for that matter. Or perhaps, just maybe, this is a life skill that a lot of people missed.

My neighbors are early risers. I am not because, obviously, I work at a newspaper, and my hours are pretty late. So when I get home from work at midnight, I don't turn on "Where is the Love?" and point the speakers full-blast at the apartment next door. Maybe I should, but I understand that just because my evening ends at four in the morning, this doesn't mean other people's evenings do.

That being said, the only action of recourse I could originally come up with was to write this column. But as much as I believed in the old adage, "the pen is mightier than the sword," an old-fashioned duel appealed to me more and more as the mornings passed by and the music got louder and louder.

But rather than emerging from my apartment, again in my Skivvies, sporting a pistol or a sword or nunchuks, I had someone else wage the duel. Because no matter how mighty the pen of a columnist may be, there's no pen mightier than that of an East Lansing police officer writing up a midmorning noise violation.

So the next time you want to blast your music, talk on your cell phone in the library or text-message your significant other while my childhood hero is doing battle, please stop for a moment and remember how sweet a little courtesy can be to your tired neighbor.