Noise

I don't want to be a kvetcher but . . . I often have a problem with noise. I can walk into my kitchen or work room and if the radio is off but still plugged in I can hear the hum. I yank out the plug and immediately feel so much better. I'll even turn off my computer during the day so I don't hear it humming. In the fall I can hear the leaf-vacuuming machine running in the cemetery 1/4 mile away. Luckily we don't have motor boats or leaf blowers or weed wackers in this asphalt jungle of a neighborhood but we do have the booming of car stereos shaking the window panes, the steady continuous hum of my next-door neighbor's dryer, and in the kitchen we have spoons scraping the bowl and forks scraping the plate. Why do these sounds make me crazy? I am not sure but I am fascinated by what sounds I can tune out and what sounds make me furious. I love the sound of kids playing in the neighborhood, and the barking of dogs now and again doesn't bother me a bit. So why do certain sounds affect me so strongly that I start to feel enraged and trapped? Maybe because I feel I cannot say anything to stop the noise. I cannot ask the cemetery groundskeeper to not vacuum up the leaves, or the neighbors to stop drying their clothes!