Should Have Known

There was no ulterior motive behind management arranging an ice cream social for us yesterday because there was no ice cream social.

Heading down to the Community Room at noon, I first ran into signs posted to entry doors indicating the social had been cancelled.

Continuing on to the Community Room, I found four residents sitting/chatting at a table.

"She’s not here" they said in unison.

The she they were speaking of is Activity Director who, it turns out, was hosting the event as part of her job responsibilities to provide occasional entertainment for us seniors — generally Arts & Crafts.

I should have known, thought I.

"Why am I not surprised" was my response to the ladies saying Activity Director was not here, the event cancelled because, as mentioned elsewhere in the blog over the last few years, that is her modus operandi.

Back in the good old days, she’d call the Baker and my buddy Apache, say she couldn’t make it and give them instructions to do her job for her — carry on with the event, tell them what to get, where to get it and have attendees sign in so she could submit a sheet showing she did her job even though she didn’t.

Apache is banned from the premises and the Baker long ago got fed up with being Activity Director’s stooge — because Activity Director was often rude and unappreciative, so thus it was no Pizza Tuesday distribution and no Ice Cream Social yesterday.

Heading down wasn’t a total waste of my time, as I did learn the identity of the pervert known as "Bill" who I was warned to be careful of because he walks the property at night, exposes himself to women who happen to be out and about.

Having previously been told he’s one of the guys who congregate out front, outside the gate smoking, and seeing just such a group, I asked, "Which one is the Bill I’m supposed to be careful of?"

All the ladies at the table knew who I was asking about. One had a run in with him.

They all chimed in on saying he wasn’t one of the guys on the lawn at that moment and went on to describe him as the "Tall thin guy who walks fast and lives around the corner from …"

Holy Smokes! I knew who that was. Had passed and greeted him many times. Once I’d received a package by mistake that was addressed to another resident. I’d walked it over to the correct unit and he’d opened the door. The package was meant for his wife.

It’s scary knowing I was that close to the pervert, had waived and exchanged pleasantries many a time. Fortunately, he’d always been respectful with me.

Hearing from the other ladies at the table about his nighttime activities — not being able to keep his zipper closed, asking one of them on a date, dealing in pills, all I have to say is, "His poor wife".

The new resident — the lady that got the downstairs unit across from the grassy knoll (let's call her Downstairs Lady), seems a busy little bee. Not only do I see her quickly moving down the walkway, on the go to wherever, but I spotted her early yesterday morning tossing water onto her patio and then cleaning the patio by sweeping the water off and later sweeping the area outside her door.

There was a time when residents could hose their patios off. However, when we had that drought back in 2015 and mean manager Nurse Ratched (Manager No. 2) was in charge, she didn’t trust us seniors to comply with the drought rules, so she ordered residents remove water hoses from patios and then had maintenance cut off the spigots to make sure we’d not be able to reattach hoses.

To this day that worries me there are no spigots, because it leaves us unable to protect ourselves in case of fire before the fire department arrives.

So anyway, there the Downstairs Lady was, being a busy little bee, and looking to be in better shape than I, while I later observed the resident that really needed the downstairs unit (let's call her Upstairs Lady) struggling to get her groceries up the stairs.

What she’s doing is to first push her cart/walker under the stairs, remove a grocery bag from the cart, reach up and place the bag high up on the stairs.

Next, she begins the trek up the stairs, reaches down, grabs the bag previously located halfway up, carries it up the remainder of the stairs.

Depending on how many bags she has to get up the stairs, she repeats the process, then lastly brings the grocery cart/walker up.

As you can see, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said she really needs a downstairs unit and should have gotten the one that opened up.