Unlike most post-vacation trauma, my re-absorption into the daily grind was pretty painless this time. i’ve maintained a remarkable mellow state of mind, despite flights and airports and stupid, cranky travel people all around me. My daughter noticed that i’m substantially less irritable.
That was until i made a trek to my pool earlier this week. The pool is a nice place to just vegetate, when not infested with the Yappy Broads, or the Whiney Family. Returning from an easy bike ride after work, my bike buddy and i noted that the pool was deserted, and it might be a good time for a splash.
Changing quickly, we walked the short distance down the road, and i put my key in the door. The lock didn’t turn. Trying several more times, i jiggled the knob* to no avail.
daisyfae: Those motherfuckers have changed the lock while i was gone! Son of a fucking geriatric bitch, they’ve changed the locks without notice!
i went off, in a big way. Ranting about the Pool Nazis, part of the Condo Association board that frequently gets on my nerves, i was infuriated that they could change the locks without notice, or providing new keys. Given the control tactics executed over parking and using the proper color of stain on exterior decks, it shouldn’t have surprised me. The pool had been far more crowded this year, and perhaps they had decided keys had been leaked to the unwashed masses.
Not taking this well, i decided we were going to climb the fence and have a swim anyway. Sending my bike buddy over the spiked wrought iron fence first**, i held his beer as he hoisted himself over the top, and climbed down the other side. He was able to go through the clubhouse building, and let me in the front.
Still angry, we had a nice splash in the pool, while i continued to spew vile commentary about the uptight pig-fuckers that manage the association. Spitting beer into the water, it felt good to defile it. Oh, the angry phone call the bastards would get first thing Friday morning! As i ranted and splashed, a couple of teenagers came through the door. Apparently they’d been issued new keys.
RAWR!
Shortly thereafter, one of the elderfucks also came through the door. This is the guy i think is in charge of the non-existent newsletter – which hasn’t been distributed since his Radio Shack TRS-80 computer went on the fritz about a year ago. Wasting no time, i confronted him as politely as i could.
daisyfae: When did they change the lock for the clubhouse? My key no longer works.
Elderfuck [looking confused]: I don’t know. I had to get a new key a few weeks ago because I’d lost mine. I hadn’t heard about the locks being changed.
Still cranky, we finished up the swim and headed out. As i left, i decided to try the lock once more. It worked perfectly.
Oops. Never mind…
* No. Not like that.
** Because he has longer legs. And i’m not stupid, even when enraged…
i.love.you. xoxoxox
(hand to gowd, sugar, i was a half step away from a bigasscry and then i came here!)
You truly are an engineer. Anyone else would have been satisfied they could not have made a mistake the first time. Anyone else would have never tried the lock a second time.
At least be thankful for that.
Enjoy a great holiday weekend.
TAG
Very few good things begin with one person to hold another’s beer while fences are climbed. Or most of them, I forget which.
I’d climb a fence for you daisyfae 😉
wouldn’t you miss those parts that would be impaled on the spikey iron fence of death if he slipped?
*shakes head in despair*
Sounds to me like they’re Gaslighting you.
Deep breaths, Daisy, deep breaths!
savannah – if you got a laugh out of my big ol’ stooopid? then it was worth it! hugs to you, and hopes for a few moments of relaxation for you this weekend!
TAG – gut feeling said i’d been a doofus! but i tried it several times when we first got there! no idea why it didn’t work!
chris – climbing fences, while drinking beer in plastic ‘sippy’ cups. it’s just what we do for fun in these parts!
nursemyra – and i’d play the lute for you, dear!
gnukid – now that you mention it? yeah… that would have been a tragedy!
DP – oh, come on! you know you’d have done the same thing!
kyknoord – i don’t think they’re that bright. definitely more of the jackbooted thug variety.
dolce – i’m back to my relaxed, spent, and rejuvinated self again. it’s all ok…
as my brother would say ” you’ve got to be smart than the object you’re working with”
the first thing I thought of was giving you one of those “Gibbs” smacks to the back of the head (from NCIS)
I know tricky locks so I usually check them several times before my vent explodes.
Huh, when I finished reading this post I said to my husband, “wow I must have possessed Daisy Fae that day because that sounds exactly like something that I would do” Sadly he just nodded his head in agreement. Sorry, no harm no foul?
See, I usually don’t have trouble with locks and keys. But give me an electronic device, especially one that is supposed to work remotely — boy I can relate to the frustration when they don’t function.
Sounds like you need to work on your “Opening” spells.
It’s not that you raged against an enemy for the wrong reason, it’s that you put that enemy on notice so that they won’t do that in the future. It’s a preemptive strike.
Well, at least you figured it out before you killed someone. That would have been awkward.
Welcome to my world, honey. Loved this post…
“What’s all this fuss I hear about endangered feces?”
i was laughing right along and thinking “i hope she does something to defile the pool” and then the beer spit, that kicks ass.
My post-vacation depression is so intense that I often wonder if going on a vacation is worth the agony it will later cause.
You’re a goober but you’re our goober.
Dais — I think actually, the Home Association hired locksmith/ninjas, who waited until you had gained entry and then changed the locks BACK to the original cyllinders, so that it would work when you tried your key — just to mess with you.
Take paranoia to new heights — that’s what I would do!
“Hell we’ll just shoot the lock off, I do it all the time ” Jimmy Buffett
hisqueen – i really did try it several times. key in, out, tweaking doorknob, etc. i have no idea why it didn’t work. but yeah, i deserved a big ol’ smack in the head!
carlae – so THAT’S it? whew! at least there’s a logical explanation!
healingmagichands – hadn’t thought to try spells. will tuck that away in the back of my toolkit for future use! then again, maybe i just need to use a ‘disappear’ spell on the boat anchors that make up the homeowners association board?
renalfailure – exactly. and now Elderfuck the newsletter editor is NEVER going to let me take over. i volunteered. he blew me off. i should drown him and be done with it….
rob – yep. awkward with a capital “A”….
texastrailerparktrash – i loved emily! and the “endangered feces”? a happy giggle for that one…
kono – there might have been other methods of defilement employed as well… ahem….
unbearable banishment – sometimes i get the post-holiday funk, but not this time. it’s strange – but the good feeling is hanging on. hope it lasts til my next adventure…
blaiser – if they were only that competent. but maybe that’s part of the game? to pretend to be a bunch of confused geriatrics, like the dude in Rosemary’s Baby, but really be evil masterminds of the gaslight treatment. hmmm….
cew – EXCELLENT advice! Next time? We don’t go over the fence. We kick down the damn door!
Haha, sounds like you need a vacation, oh wait, never mind!!
Ouch! Just how ‘big’ did you feel when your key ‘worked’? Did you suck your spitted beer out of the pool? Did you flush redder than a boiled live lobster?lol
Man, I do shit like this all the time, except without the swimming and the keys.
I thought for sure this story was going to end with, “And we then we found out it was locked because they had filled the pool with bleach to clean away the algae.” So… cool! You didn’t get bleached.
FJ – already planning the next few adventures! summer is just getting started and i’ve got more playing to do!
47whitebuffalo – welcome to the park! and i felt like a big dork! fortunately, only my biking buddy was there to see how lobster-red-faced i was. and he’s kinda used to it, because i’m generally a big dork. and no. we left the beer… oops…
rassles – but you do it with much more righteous style! you’d have STILL notified the condo board about how nasty you thought they’d been, and that even the fact that you thought they could have changed the locks meant they were a bunch of useless, evil tools…
writerdood – you know, that thought briefly crossed my mind. after i was in the pool, of course…
ooo dat bleach algae thing would have been nasteeeeeeeee!
LOL.
I would have been shaking my head like the AFLAC duck. 😉
~m
~m – my friend knows how to duck. he has to do it. a lot.