I Still Have It . . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It: Confessions of a Fiftysomething by Rita Rudner

Author:Rita Rudner [Rudner, Rita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 030739459X
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Published: 2008-01-02T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love. I’d stepped in it a few times.

* * *

Overpaying Your Dues

“WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD,” THE CASUALLY dressed man slurred, holding up a glass of white wine. It was our first day in our new house and Martin and I were bleary-eyed from unpacking mislabeled boxes.

“I’m Mitch Kemp,” the man continued. “I’m the president of Sycamore Road. Just wanted to introduce myself…I take care of everything that you need. I’ve lived on Sycamore for twenty-five years. If you have any questions about how this street works, you just ask me.”

“I have a question,” I asked. “How do we get clickers to raise and lower the gates?”

“I’ll take care of that,” Mitch replied confidently. “In the meantime, here is the code—just punch it in. The code is changed every three months for security reasons.”

“What a nice man,” I said as he walked away.

“He wants money,” my husband muttered under his breath.

I have to explain that Sycamore Road is a private street. To stop hurried drivers from using it as a shortcut, it was gated at both ends, and as a result it’s now no longer the city’s responsibility.

My suspicious husband turned out to be right. A few days later a bill arrived in our mailbox. It wasn’t for a lot of money: $125 every three months. With it, we received a list of all the people on Sycamore Road and their phone numbers. Stars were next to the names of residents who had paid the fee. There was an X next to the names of those who were delinquent.

“What does he do for these dues?” my husband complained, mentally adding up how much money this came to each year.

“He takes care of the road,” I explained.

“What does he take care of?”

“He makes sure it’s OK.”

“Does he feed it? Does he take it to the movies? It’s a road. What does he do that requires forty thousand dollars a year?”

“Let’s just pay him. We don’t want an X next to our names; we want a star.”

The next day the clickers that controlled the movement of the street gates appeared in our mailbox.

“See, he gave us clickers,” I said excitedly, happy to have evidence that we were getting something for our dues.

“Wait a second, what’s this?” my husband questioned, pulling out a sheet of paper from the envelope. “Fifty dollars? Fifty dollars for clickers? Where is the bill that shows us how much he paid for them?” he whined.

“He went and got the clickers. He has to be compensated for his time.”

“I bet he’s got a stack of them in his garage. He just wanted to make sure we paid our dues before he gave us the clickers. I’m not paying him for the clickers.”

“We have to. We’ll get an X.”

Sycamore Road was a quaint little street. People jogged, dogs walked, deer even occasionally meandered through our backyard. One day I spotted Mitch stooping down and inspecting a crack in the pavement. I ran back home.

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