65 Days to Halloween

Arriving at the Pain Cave on Monday, seeing the truck hired to repair the damage done to the liquor store parked out front, I right away thought the liquor store had been hit yet again.

Fortunately, such was not the case.

The guy was putting the finishing touches on the job, which totaled $10,000 — $2,000 over the estimate.

Trainer tells me the license plate on the truck was captured on camera, but traced back as stolen.

Figures.

After the morning workout, I rushed back to the unit, changed clothes, headed out for Home Depot’s Halloween event, which turned out to be a waste of time and energy.

Not only did the Depot not have the "whole entire front inside of the store is to be filled with Halloween ware" as the worker said, there was even less than what was offered when I walked in on the 12th and the Frankenstein Greeter’s sign indicated 80 days to Halloween.

Greeter this time was the $249 Murderous Maple, announcing 66 Days to Halloween.

Seeing empty shelves and so little remaining, I assumed — like the worker had warned me, "Folks are already buying. So, if you see something you want, best to grab it now".

Seeing nothing of interest, I headed home to my needlepoint project, with a stop by See’s Candy Shop.

I put on my big girl panties this morning, made it down to the Community Room, participated in Arts and Crafts.

I forgot to take a photo of today’s craft before I began but, as you can see, it was once again a painting kit.

As was previously established, painting is not my craft, but I attempted to do something dark, eerie, a Halloween-themed pumpkin. However, combined with the color black not available, and my poor painting abilities, mistakes were made, which mistakes I tried to cover and ended up producing a hot mess that immediately went in the trash when I returned to my unit.

Oh well.

The gate situation appears to still be a hot topic around here, with one of the usual suspects complaining that she didn’t know how to get her keycard as the manager is never in her office.

"Probably looking for a new job" came out of my mouth.

When that happens — when words just come like that, it’s generally a premonition. We shall see.

I wouldn’t blame her. Managing this property is a tough job, what with trying to please Corporate — keep costs down by not spending money on repairs and trying to get residents off her back — complaining about manager not spending money on repairs … and rent increases.

The big news is that Bicycle Boy — the resident who has bullied other residents since before I arrived on the complex, the guy who scratched up Big Linda’s truck, fought with my old buddy Apache and more recently destroyed the shrine set up for Shadow, has been evicted.

Turns out, there were two shrines — one on the lawn outside Shadow’s unit, the other set up outside the gate, on the patch of city land where Shadow passed away. That shrine was constructed by Shadow’s guy pals — the guys he sat and smoked and chatted with daily.

I never saw that one. Probably because BB also destroyed that shrine and the guys did not rebuild.

What the guys did do was file a complaint with the office about BB and how he harasses and can’t get along with anyone.

One of many complaints over the years from other residents that went nowhere.

However, this time someone listened.

Probably because, according to the Baker, BB had also recently "gotten into it" with a resident who wanted no parts of him, asked to be moved to an upstairs unit, away from the ground floor, where it was easy for BB to harm him.

The resident was granted his move and BB was finally, after all these years, served with eviction papers.

He’s gone.

I would have loved to see BB’s face when he realized it was over for him.

I’ve tried many many times to get a photo of BB for you, came close but no cigar.

At any rate, he’s history now, residents can breathe a little easier, and no matter how many residents want manager gone, she’s aces with me for having the guts to do what should have been done a long time ago.