Crazy lady not so crazy

There's been a story all over the news here lately about some crazy lady in Nara who had been terrorizing her neighbors for the past 10 years (!) with shouted obscenities, loud music 24 hours a day, tearing around the 'hood in her car honking the horn and beating her futon clean over the balcony at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. In fact the whole thing started when a neighborhood asked her if she could clean her futon at a more reasonable hour. Apparently this was enough provocation to set her off on a ten year bender.

Clearly this was a woman consumed by rage and in need of a hobby, and antagonizing her neighbors was just the thing. The astounding thing about all this is that there are no laws in Japan to restrict this kind of behavior. I guess it's just doesn't happen enough to warrant implementation. The only recourse the aggrieved neighbors had was to sue the beast for emotional damages and when she refused to both stop and pay up, the cops hauled her away. Why it took the neighbors 10 years to work up the nerve to take action amazes me, but it speaks to the whole non-confrontational nature of Japanese social behavior.

But the thing I find most charming about this little tale, is that the music the crazy lady chose to terrorize her neighbors with for 10 years was a mix of Beyoncé, Maria Carey, Whitney Houston, Usher, etc. All you're basic smooth R&B, Diva stuff.... the kind of stuff that really sets my teeth on edge. Guess the crazy lady wasn't so crazy after all.