A letter from one of my FD brothers to his HOA. He hails from England, and has been in Texas for over 20 years. Thought some of yall would appreciate this.
"Received another postcard from our illustrious homeowners association. They may have been a tad presumptuous in the line ‘thank you for your cooperation in addressing this matter. i wrote back!
Dear Kris,
Thank you for my second postcard, in as many weeks, this time concerning the grassless patch in my front yard. I’m sure there is no correlation between my seasonal sign and receiving said second postcard, in such a short timeframe. By the way, I really do enjoy receiving postcards, albeit ones with a beautiful picturesque locations not so much ones explaining Hidden Creek’s many bylaws. However, it makes me feel like I’m back in the mid-nineties when I go to the mailbox. I do request that you pop an interesting stamp on my next, inevitable, card. Talking of which, did you know that the world’s most expensive stamp sold at Sotheby’s auction house for 9.5 million dollars, a British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta stamp if you will.
As fascinating as all that is, I must give you an insight into my lawn issues. I’m not saying that the founding members of our illustrious homeowner’s association didn’t have a rudimentary grasp of the fundamentals of biology. Yet, photosynthesis has been a ‘known’ thing since Jan Ingenhousz wrote a paper on his discovery in 1779. Now I don’t have a copy of Hidden Creek’s initial rules and regulations, but I’ll hazard a guess it wasn’t prior to Big Jan’s revolutionary find. So, the stipulations imposed on homeowners to have two mandatory shade trees in their front yard shows a veritable lack of foreshadowing.
Kris, you may not know this, but I come from a long line of alchemists. Since medieval times (I’m not talking about the dinner and tournament just off of North Stemmons Freeway, although Groupon are currently running a 40% discount for the spectacular show, with chicken drumsticks, which I believe is very good value: check it out) generations of my ancestors have toiled away with a variety of materials and elixirs in the pursuit of creating gold. So far none of us have cracked this ancient conundrum. I thought I had a ‘EUREKA’ moment when boiling up a concoction of Alka-Seltzer, Crème de Menthe and a dash of Liquid Plumber. Suddenly my wife saw a glint of gold in this mixture; I was overwhelmed with excitement right up until she stated: ‘where’s my other earring got too?’ The pursuit of the noble art goes on. If I am successful, I will then move onto human levitation.
After both my, above mentioned, lofty goals (both literally and metaphorically) are realized, growing grass without sunlight will then be my crowning achievement: Overcoming the natural laws of botany. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to grow grass under a large oak tree, but I expect it is by combining Unicorn manure, pixey dust and a whole lot of wishful thinking.
In the meantime, I shall be sending you some of my ideas on a temporary solution we can all agree on.
Best wishes and such.