The Joys of Leadership

I have a half hour before I need to get my derriere in gear and get ready to leave.
I’m off to pickleball again, but this time with a neighbor who I hope to infect with the pickleball bug. She’s never played before, has never even seen it, but she’s game.

          Yesterday we had our annual condo meeting, and a surprisingly good turnout. It probably helped that this year we didn’t try to all squish into our small clubhouse; it was so crowded that My Guy and I brought our own chairs.

          Our long-suffering (and soon to move – I think now I know why) president fielded questions from the group. No one’s cleaned the outside hallways in months, will the landscape company be putting down mulch?, the railing on the bridge is showing its age, etc.

          The best was the carefully made-up older woman who marched to the front of the room (everyone else had just stood up at their seats) brandishing a plastic bag. Her complaint was mold on her screened porch (aka lanai, here). Our president said he and another gentleman has twice looked at her porch and found no mold, except for the indoor rug she had out there. As the exchange went on, we all realized that the moldy rug was likely what was in the bag. Not sure what she planned to do with it. This wasn’t a court of law, with Exhibit A and B.

 He also pointed out that she had indoor furniture out there, which likely wasn’t helping matters. Ignoring that suggestion, and the offer that a solution of bleach and water would probably remedy things, she went on to request permission to glass in her porch. Our less-patient president pointed out that that was expressly forbidden in the contract that she had signed. She claimed that the builder years ago had told her she could. Our president again referenced the contract, diplomatically not saying what we all knew and were thinking – Our builder has shown himself to be a snake-oil salesman and would say whatever served his purposes.

After another resident reminded her that glassing in an un-airconditioned porch in Florida would be creating a giant Petri dish, the woman at last took her rug and sat down.

Phew!