Shortlisted, 2007 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate

OUR BATTLE WITH the twenty-one-year-old party girl next door over her top-volume dance music came to a head one evening. Having tried the friendly, then friendly-yet-firm route, my husband and I decided to show we were serious. We’d called the police before and the music had promptly been turned down, but the cop who came that fateful night heard the doof-doof blast from downstairs and took it upon himself to issue a twenty-eight-day summons to cease and desist, even though she’d turned the music off on her way out a moment before he reached her door.