This week: Putting the WHOA in"HOA" Edited by: Sssssh! I'm not really here.  
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Have you dealt with members of an HOA, that think they are premium rule-enforcers, but in reality are just a glorified social planning group?
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Hello folks!
Well, it's the last day of August, and you know what that means, right?  Yes, at midnight, the party lights go on, the festivities come alive, and we the members of the community get to celebrate WDC's 22nd birthday! get to participate in
Ahhh, communities. They are lovely, are they not? This is a place where most of us call our second home, our virtual reality home. A home where we can all afford to stay, mingle, write, review, create, and perhaps drink virtual coffee and some wine with our friends, here. Story Master and Story Mistress have worked extremely hard to make this such a premier place for all of us. We are blessed to have them at the helm.
Not all communities are well-run as this community, unfortunately. I know that in Florida, where I do my snowbirding, in my tin-can community, we have the most self-aggrandizing bunch of board members of HOA's hands down!
Before leaving Florida in May of this year, one of those members came into the TV room, in raging living color. I swear, I expected the head to do a 360 and the bursting forth of green pea soup! This guy was on a mission. My dear friend had` just come back from the main hall where there is an ice machine and filled a seal-tight bag with ice cubes. He was dealing with a bad tooth, and was trying to alleviate the swelling until his dental visit the next day. At the time, the Association was running a game called "left,Right, Center." Don't ask me, I don't know, don't want to know. The HOA dude, started chasing my friend down the hall yelling at him. I look toward the hall to see what was going on. Evidently, the man was yelling because of the bag of ice. The exchange went something like this:
"Hey, you, stop. You can't drink in the TV room. Stop! Do you hear me?"
Me:, "No, he doesn't hear you. He's deaf. You need to face him so he can read your lips. What's the problem?"
"You can't drink in hear. I saw him take ice!"
My friend sat down on one of the club chairs and placed the ice on his jaw. The guy started toward him and got right into his face and yelled out, "You can't have drinks in hear!" My friend kept pretty cool, because this guy was getting dangerously close to putting his hands on him, not a good idea accosting a deaf person who's trying to read some angry slurring lips. He had no idea what he had done wrong, the ice in the clubhouse is for anyone in the community.
"Me: WHOA! Step away from him, now." I'm standing up and beginning to approach him. You are leaning right into his personal space and taking a huge chance because neither he nor I have been Covid-vaccinated. 
The guy practically jumped back and headed closer toward the long hallway off of the TV room. My friend read my lips when I said, "He thinks you have booze in here because you have ice cubes."  There is a rule about no alcoholic beverages outside the main hall, and only there when there are HOA social activities being run due to insurance liabilities. It's a reasonable rule and I abide by it.
I turned back toward the guy who tried to defend his actions by saying that I told him my friend needs to read his lips, so he got in front of him.
"I said he's deaf, not stupid! Do you think yelling in his face is going to restore his hearing? Does two inches away from his nose make it easier for him to read your lips? He's not nearsighted. Have you forgotten about personal space between people while running Right, Left and Center and imbibing in adult beverages in that room down the hall?"
I have a confession to make. Webbie doesn't always edit the words flowing from her witchy lips. This was one of those cases. 
My voice raised a notch as things began heating up near that TV room. Now the guys in the pool hall were coming down the hall to see what was going on. The people in the auditorium started to gather, as well as the ladies from the ceramics class up the hall and around the bend, while I continued demonstrating my "French," speak. 
Things cooled down when the guy's wife, took him by the arm and ushered him back to the auditorium. My pool room buddies laughed about the nerve of that guy confronting WW. He didn't know who he was contending with in regards to this witch.
About 20 minutes after the fracas, I see a familiar face entering the clubhouse. It was the manager of the park. He walked up to where I was sitting. My friend had just left to dump the excess water out of the ice bag in the men's room.
"I don't believe they called you down here, Jay. It's ridiculous that they disturbed you at home over this." I explained about the guy, who refused to state his name, got in my friend's face and yelled at him over a bag of ice.
The manager shook his head. "I know about that guy and his wife. They get more complaints than I can count. He had no right to treat another resident like that. The rules state no food or alcoholic beverages in the rooms other than the auditorium when they are having an event. You guys are allowed to have something to drink in this room so long as it's not alcoholic. I've told him so." The manager said he'd take care of it, we did nothing wrong. The wrong party is the one who called me at home to complain about a problem that didn't exist.
You see folks, the HOA is not a policing agency. They have no special rights beyond any of us who pay for our tin-can's lot rent which includes all those amenities.
Evidently the manager got the word out to those big bullies to not approach residents. The next night I was sitting in my favorite spot at the clubhouse using the free WiFi with ION TV on in the background, when the HOA president himself came up to me and apologized for the other member's rudeness. He said he was warned about his actions and it won't happen again.
I thanked him for reining in a loose cannon in their ranks. Then I said, "You know Bill, it's members like that guy who cost the HOA all that money in attorney's fees when they assault another resident. Perhaps at the next HOA board meeting you'll remind them that they are powerless over us in the clubhouse. We have every right as residents to use the amenities without someone assuming a bag of ice means a party in the TV room. And if we were partying, they couldn't do anything except report us to the manager or call the sheriff's department to handle anything unlawful going on.
And that was the end of that "non-party," folks!
However, there is a huge party going on when the clock strikes midnight! Happy 22nd birthday WDC! 
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Mysteries can be humorous! The following have won places in The Cop Shop Mystery over the years. It began as a yearly contest in September, 2016. At that time, it was the 16th WDC Birthday and contestants had to solve the mystery in exactly 16 sentences.  This September, those who want to enter will have 22 sentences to solve the mystery. Great examples are shown below.
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Won First Place with exactly16 brilliant crime solving sentences!
The place where YOU can join the fun in September!
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Some replies to my question in "Comedy Newsletter (August 3, 2022)"
Do your heavy duty drama stories allow for a touch of comedy?
TheBusmanPoet 
If it happens that way, it's fine. But I won't purposely put in humor. I feel it needs to come in naturally, as part of what you are writing. Well, it's how it happens here. We all have our own ways of how we see things. 
N.A Miller 
yes... has a light moment between characters or the group of characters that share interaction. i feel there should be some comedy in a serious drama... shows that we are still human.
Beholden 
It is my great weakness that, if I see a joke as I'm writing, it goes in, regardless of the type of piece I'm creating. So, you might come across something totally inappropriate in the middle of something serious I've written. But that just makes it funnier to me. Your face!
s 
I saw a Stephen King interview where he says that, in horror, a touch of comedy is important. It relaxes the reader and so the next scare has more impact.
Thank you all for your responses! 
Happy 22nd birthday, WDC! 
It will be 14 years in September that I edited my very first Comedy Newsletter. 14 years, every 4 weeks, and never missed an edition! Pretty cool, eh?
Some fun for WDC Birthday Week ...
See you there, and see you next month, folks!
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Comedy: August 31, 2022 Issue [#11518]
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