The Great Migration

     Well, phew! Glad that week is over.

     Our complex had three days of fun and games with repavers, who were back fixing a bit of shoddy work from when they laid new asphalt before Christmas. With 132 units, it was great that they did the original work back in December, before most of us snowbirds arrived. Not so much in April, when not only are all of us from the cold North here, but so are our relatives, thanks to Easter weekend and spring break.

     The first paving had left patches thinner then rest, and with Florida’s harsh sun and thunderous rains, never mind wear and tear of vehicles, these would have eroded in no time. So last Monday they were due to re-seal. Landing at Normandy might have been simpler. The police department okayed parking on the abutting street. The neighboring Shriners okayed parking in their field. The holy roller church in the other direction also said to come on over.

  We began the week before to alert people, since no one would be able to back their cars out of garages or drive on the new surface for three days. As a building rep, I sent an email to 10 households in my building, and posted a notice by the elevator for the one idiotic couple that won’t give me their email. (I’m not sure they use the elevator, so I did wear an evil smile as I scotch-taped it to the wall.)

On Saturday I ran into the nice lady one door down. She hadn’t looked at her email recently, and had no idea anything was happening. Oh, and she had a horde of company arriving on Monday.

Okay. So, I printed up strips reminding everyone in the building to check their email, and taped them across each front door.

Sunday night and early Monday morning the exodus descended as people jockeyed for parking spots on the side street.  And it all went well, mostly.

There was the guy who somehow got a full- sized moving van past the cables strung across the entrance and moved in, lock, stock, and barrel.

There was the person My Guy witnessed who took down the cable and drove his car in on Tuesday, saying he had places to be.

And there was the 85 year-old who didn’t have email and had no clue what was going on. (I suspect he wasn’t the only one.)

But we lived through it, got some extra exercise walking to our cars, and we have a shiny new drive and parking area. Funny, though – with a perfectly good garage only steps from our front door, it was still kind of hard to move my car back. I’d managed to score a reeelly good parking spot there on the street.