Florida Troll

I thought I’d spotted a troll today. Not a big one, so instead possibly a hobbit with scoliosis, a short figure with a rounded back.

          Mamie was peeing on yet another patch of grass from her apparently never-ending supply and I was standing idly by, waiting for her to finish. The figure – about 50 yards away - turned and I realized it was a child with a backpack, an equally unusual sight here in our Florida complex.

          We’re here for a few weeks, and it’s a bit different from what we experience in the wintertime. That’s one reason we’re here; the exodus from the North hasn’t started yet, which means it’s much quieter here and the roads are less crazy and we can actually get into a restaurant if we decide to eat out.

          But then again, it’s also much quieter here: our complex is a ghost town. I can walk the Mamester all around the property without encountering another soul. Some of this is of course because the snow birds haven’t yet taken flight, but another reason is we’ve had some turnover, particularly in our building.

          There’s an incredible building boom going on in our town and six or seven different sets of neighbors have opted to move to one of these new developments. Most have become full-time residents here in the past two years, and I imagine they found a condo a bit too confining. I’m sorry to see some (not all) of them leave, but I’m curious who will now be moving in.

          I thought about contacting the former owners next door, for instance, to see if they could tell me anything about the new folks, but then realized they probably don’t know any more than I do.

It’s funny - anything else we sell, it’s generally a face-to-face transaction. Yet with one of the most personal things you can sell, the home you’ve lived in, it’s an almost completely impersonal business and handled through intermediaries.