I had some really awful neighbors when I was a little kid. We lived in an upstairs apartment in Silver Lake (L.A.) and the neighbors directly below us were a cop and his two daughters. I must have been about 5 and the girls were maybe 7 and 10 years old. They tormented me terribly, nonstop, and the younger girl always used to tell me that her older sister could do whatever she wanted because she was 10. They were huge bullies. I was counting the days until I'd turn 10 but there were an awful lot of them, and these girls were bigger than me. They used to tie me up in the hammock and leave me there for hours like a little worm in a coccoon...some time soon after that I became a self-proclaimed expert at undoing knots, and went around challenging people to make a knot I couldn't untie!
Anyhow, one time I went to their apartment to watch tv. Their dad was this scary guy who ruled the home with an iron fist and barked out commands. He was sitting in a recliner at the back of the room, and he made the two girls lie on the floor and change the channel for him. I lay next to them, hoping for some cartoons or something, but it was just the news and a football game. I whispered to one of them and asked if we were going to be able to watch cartoons, and they shushed me in a panic. I had never seen these tough-acting girls so scared. They had to just watch what he wanted to see or it was no tv at all. One of them raised her head and obscured his view of the tv, and he started bellowing and then brought out his police revolver and began shooting into the ceiling! The girls flattened themselves out on the floor like a couple of flounders. I was too terrified to move, and lay there on the floor for what seemed like forever until he went to the bathroon, then ran for my life. Ever after that, I lay in bed awake at night wondering if a bullet was going to come up through the floor.