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Surely you court-jest?

By Ed Goldman

Memorandum to: HOA Members

From: Erma Geddon, Board Member/Chair, Citizenship Subcommittee 

Your elected board of directors (with the exception of Maureen Aiken-Williams, who was appointed to serve out the term of her late husband, Dagwood) has some exciting news! Beginning on March 10th or April 14th—depending on whether the contractors complete the resurfacing of the courts on schedule or leave our job to take a short-term, much more lucrative one, as they often do—we will be implementing a reservations system for pickleball, ping-pong and peewee swimming! 

Your complaints have not been lost on us, whether in ALL-CAPS emails, two a.m. voicemail messages and last week in the produce aisle of Whole Fools (which seemed uncalled for as I was there explaining to my grandchildren why healthy salad choices such as kale and arugula are supposed to taste dreadful). 

One of the complaints we can’t address as yet  but have appointed a subcommittee to look into (chaired by Maureen Aiken-Williams—”in memory of Dag,” as she put it when graciously accepting the assignment) is why the pickleball courts, ping-pong tables and peewee swimming pool were originally sited within four feet of each other, rendering a member’s engagement in any of the above problematic. 

We recently accepted without comment a suggestion by a member that we deal with the challenge by creating a new sport, exclusive to our HOA, called PingPongPicklePool, though in subsequent conversations among us, it was speculated that the letter had been a rather heavy-handed swat at satire. Certainly your HOA board enjoys a hearty laugh—with the possible exception of Armand Harmatz, whose work as an arachnid taxidermist seems to leave him both little to laugh at and little to stuff—but really. Three of us have jobs so satire is waste of quality time otherwise spent with our families or at scrap-booking seminars.

In summary—or, in just a few months, in summery (sorry, we simply can’t resist a bit of wordplay; this one was suggested by HOA board member Harmon “Hoppy” McMackinaw, whom we all know as a wordsmith non pareil…or is that “wordsmith KitKat Bar,” Hopster?” See? Two can play that tune!)—we are on the verge of violent anarchy if we don’t abide by the three Rs: rules, regs and recreation. 

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Only last week, Carlita Cavanaugh’s normally adorable grandchildren—Clark, who’s 6; Carl, age 5; and Sasquatch, recently turned 2 (we believe the latter’s name to be an inside family joke)—substituted a can of ping-pong balls for tennis balls. I’m sorry, this is just unacceptable behavior, even for children who haven’t taken etiquette classes, which our HOA really should offer. 

In fact, I have a call in to Hermione Lemur, who accompanied her husband “Skip” to Fallujah when he was appointed its U.S. ambassador by a President who was clearly not fond of him. In any event, if anyone can whip these whipper-snappers into shape, it’s our Hermione. (You should see how dapperly she dressed “Skip” for his funeral. An excellent argument for open caskets, to my way of thinking.)