The HOA: You Asked For It.

I feel that I have to offer a preemptive apology tonight to our Home Owner's Association. Yes, it does appear that some giant alien weed has infested my yard. It's brutal and has a high level of intelligence and seems to be immune from me cussing at it to get out of my front yard. But that's not the reason tonight of why I'm giving a preemptive apology to the Home Owner's Association. Just so they know though, the weed thing is being handled by the government. I can't remember the names of the gentlemen who showed up, but they assure me that what I saw was just the light reflecting off Venus.

What I need to apologize for is the Armageddon that I'm sure my wife is about to bring at our annual HOA meeting. She is a bit pissed. Well, that's like calling Niagara falls a small bump in the barrel ride. But either way, I wish the HOA board members the best of luck and I'm sorry if she makes you cry.

I have known Hossmom for a really long time and let me give you guys some advice. When she gets like this it is better to hire a contractor to build you a fallout shelter, get about a year's worth of food in there, and then just hunker down until the nuclear winter is over.

But the HOA really brought this on themselves. It's like complaining that you stepped in cow shit when you walk through the pasture. It's best just not even cross over the barbed wire and just let the cows do what they do. But they didn't.

The HOA here isn't really that good. Well, they are pretty awful really. There is no communication, no effort to really do alot. But they do enjoy taking our 400 bucks a year through the home owners fees. But that's not what has got her so riled up. The HOA decided to sell all the common property around our neighborhood. This is a problem as one of those areas backs up to our backyard and we play in it a crap ton. It's a common area that about 10 houses share. We found out almost by accident that they wanted to sell it to. It would appear they were just trying to do it quick. When Hossmom called the President of our HOA he told her that the land had no real value. She was quick to point out that it had value to the people that lived around it. She may have called someone a douchebag. The reason for the sell was that the HOA didn't want to pay to have it mowed anymore.

This lead to Hossmom into a whole other area, that was just the beginning. Before she left the house she wanted a complete audit done of the books and had about two pages of "talking points" that she was going to rip off.

My advice: run. She's hard enough to handle when she is doing a little normal debate. But when she has had 3 months to do research she is pretty much unbeatable. She left with a copy of the bylaws. Who the hell reads the bylaws of the HOA? So yup, you guys might be a little fucked.

As I have been in your hopeless position many, many times, I am going to offer you some advice that my children and I feel works really well when she gets like this.

Look at your feet alot when she is tearing into you. For the love of God do not make direct eye contact. She's like a silverback, she'll take it as a challenge and all of a sudden you will get the verbal charge. So just look at the shoelaces.

Don't stand up. Bad move. It's a move of aggression. She'll take it as an opportunity to put you on stage and further humiliate you in front of a lot of people. My advice is to go the other route. Find a table and just crawl under it. The storm has got to pass sometime.

If Elvis is in fact alive and lives in our neighborhood, you might want to ask him to come to the meeting to serve as a distraction. If we don't have Elvis here, get the circus to detour through the neighborhood. Perhaps a lion tamer to battle my giant weed. My point is that a distraction is truly your only hope. I give Little Hoss 10 bucks anytime she flings food at the wall when I'm getting my ass chewed. It's our standing arrangement.

Don't answer any direct question that she puts to you. She doesn't want you to answer it. She already knows the answer. She's just trying to make you look like an ass. Try the tried and true "mumble" answer that my kids give. And of course, keep looking at your feet.

Maybe those will work, maybe those won't. It's hard to tell with Hossmom when she gets like this. With me, she's pissed for about 2 days so at least you guys know what's coming. And if at all possible, just keep my name out of it. I've got the weed to deal with.

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Editor's note: Hossmom returned. I have discovered that I have been nominated for some HOA committees. Great job guys, dragging me into this. Awesome really. Now she can just yell at me again. Well played. Didn't see that one coming at all.