Letter to the Home Association Management

Subject: Apologies

Dear Home Association Management,

It was me. The guilt is overwhelming, and I must fess up. I know I acted like it wasn't me and just sniffed along with everyone else in the neighborhood when they were all sniff sniff "Do you smell that? It smells like vinegar! I wonder what's going on?" I realize it was wrong to just nod and say, "Yeah. Weird." and grab my mail and hustle inside, but in my defense, do you realize just how hard the water is here?

See, I was in the bathroom, leaning over the tub and attempting to decalcify our humidifier since my dear, poor young son was suffering from the worst case of sniffles I've seen. If you'd have seen his poor miserable face, you'd understand that I had to do something - I had to make the humidifier work at its best!

But when I opened up the humidifier casing it was the worst case of calcification I had ever seen; it was as if I was breeding chalk. Unbelievable considering it's a new humidifier and had only been used for a month! So, I took up the brand new bulk size jug of vinegar into my bathroom, leaned over to pour a bit, and... well, my hands were wet so it slipped out of my hands... Yes, most of the gargantuan jug spilled into my bathtub.

I quickly went into crisis mode and flung up the bathroom window, cranked the ventilation fan, and slammed the bathroom door so the smell wouldn't progress into my house. And thankfully it didn't. But I had no idea the wind would carry the smell so powerfully, as if the vinegar spill was actually a tanker in the street.

Although, now that I think about it, the wind/ventilation fan effect does explain the uncanny timing all the school children have of ringing my doorbell when I'm baking cookies or pizza.

And, while I'm apologizing anyway, I know that I have not been keeping the ordinance to weed my flower bed every single day, but, again, in my defense, who really does besides the lone retired man who hates people down the street? Does the lady with the clipboard really have to evaluate all our flower beds? Honestly, do we really need that rule? Couldn't we make it weed weekly or monthly, but not daily?

If you want a good rule, how about you address the school children who ring my door constantly? I'll admit that at first I thought it was cute when they were trying to sell their services of watering my yard when it was raining. And again when they were trying to sell me curled up dandelions for a quarter. But the thing is, even after we reach the double digits of me saying no to them, they still come... last time they tried to sell me DumDum lollipops for a dollar... EACH. If this keeps up, I'm going to stop answering my door and do you really want that when your lady with the clipboard comes by to tell me my edging isn't up to snuff?

I'm sorry, I was really writing to apologize for the vinegar scare and not to give my opinion. Please do not take away my pool key deposit. But, speaking of pools, I'd be remiss not to express my concern in how you're handling the pool situation.

I'm very glad that the teenage vandals didn't start in on the pool until the season was almost over, but the way you handled it... I just don't get. Granted, the man on the Home Association Pool Board was very kind to volunteer his time to dissuade the teenagers from their ways, but... frankly, I'm not sure his motorized wheelchair is fast enough to actually scare the teenagers. It did, however, scare the adults when he slammed his wheelchair into the pool gate... repeatedly. So much so, in fact, that I ran up to him the second time he did it to see if he needed help only for him to tell me he was just making sure the lock on the gate was working. "It's usually open when it shouldn't be," he explained. "That's how they keep getting in."

I looked around. A few feet from the widely spaced bars surrounding the pool there is a big red button labeled "EXIT" that when pushed, opens the gate. I'm no genius but... I don't think the pool gate lock is the problem. And I don' think volunteers need to bang up their legs to find that out.

In conclusion, I'm sorry about the vinegar and your rule on Christmas lights being down by July is really a good one. The planes were flying a little too close for my comfort.

Sincerely,

A resident who was surprised to find out the lady in that "Over the Hedge" movie must have been based on truth.