We fought the law and the law won

So we got a Nasty-Gram from our Home Owners Association.  This may have come as a shock but it wasn't our first.  We'd received them before from our HOA in Arizona.  The first one back then was a shock.  I immediately thought than one of our neighbors had narc'd on us but said neighbors quickly explained that the old bitties on the HOA board like to drive around looking for things on which to cite people.  Time well spent, I assure you.

In our case it was weeds in our front yard.  Now forget whatever you know about weeds and remember that I'm talking about Phoenix, Arizona.  It's a desert.  Nothing grows without a drip line.  Our entire yard, front and back, was on life support.  When they terraform Mars, it will look like Phoenix.  Beautiful, green plant life, man-made lakes and fountains, right up to the edge where it ends it vast dusty, tumbleweedy nothingness.  It's Under the Dome, without the Dome.  

The great down fall to drip lines is that they're made of plastic.  Plastic and heat don't mix well so they constantly needed to be repaired or replaced. Our front yard was "natural landscaping", read: rocks with the occasional non-native plant.  Natural my ass.  Anyway, the drip lines were always developing little leaks and it's really hot so they were not always fixed immediately so, voila, a weed would spring up.  Not a hearty, thick stemmed dandelion-y fuck-you weed but a flimsy, practically see-through pathetic weed that was very easy to ignore especially if you rarely went outside.  After a while you'd get a note from the HOA asking you to remove the weeds because your house alone was bringing down the resale value of the entire neighborhood. (Not the complete and utter collapse of the mortgage market. I mean you couldn't give those fucking houses away.) After the first Nasty-gram, John refused to partake in any weed removal until after receiving a "warning".  

Me, "It's getting a little thick out front."  

John, "I know.  The letter should be coming any day now."

So we were old hats at the whole Nasty-Gram thing but we were a little surprised at the reason it was sent.  As you may know California is in the middle of a drought.  No, really, it's made the news and everything.  Every one's lawns are going brown so the HOA board had to dust off the by-laws to find something else to complain about.  In our case it was exposed drip lines.  Huh?  Our front yard has not changed since we bought the house 5 years ago, mainly because the previous owners did a really nice job and we didn't want to fuck it up.   After 5 years, they'd had enough of our Drip-Line fiasco and god-damn-it you have 30 days to fix it!  For a while we were like, Ooooh, a Nasty-Gram, remember when we got those in Arizona? They like us. They really, really like us. Then we tossed it aside and went to Starbucks.  

Over the next 30 days, we would on occasion talk about different ground cover options.

John, "I like that dark cedar stuff."

Me, "I was thinking more like Styrofoam packing peanuts.  I would pay a thousand dollars to cover our front yard with pink bouncy balls just so I could say, Well you didn't specify what ground cover."

<end of conversation>

30 days went by and we received Nasty-Gram #2.  We're on Step 2! They have steps!

Me, "What do you think step 3 is?"

John, "I don't know. I could probably look it up but I'd have to dig out the paperwork from when we bought the house."

Me, "Don't they have a website."

John, <laughs>

Me, "Why don't you write back and tell them that 30 days is not enough time to fight with your wife about ground cover options."

John, "I'm going to write back and just say, Bring It On."

So we waited.  And waited.  

Me, "What if Step 3 is a fine?"

John, "I'm not paying a fucking fine."

Me, "What if they send us to collections?

John, "For ground cover? Who the fuck cares?"

And we waited.  After 30 days, still nothing.  I was starting to think that there was no Step 3.   This was the most boring feud in the history of feuds.  This was never going to spiral into a tragic death scene where one of our kids falls into a forbidden love with one of the HOA's kids and we're forced to face the error of our ways. Really, people? We say 'no' twice and you give up? This is your level of commitment? Now I'm started to worry about what we're paying the landscapers to maintain the common areas. They could be gouging us and we'd be none the wiser. 

We were amazed that nothing had happened and would talk about it on occasion. John would drive around looking at other people's ground cover and would insist I came with him to see one that he really liked even though I kept stressing to him that I didn't care.  No, really, I Don't Care.  It's not a trap, just pick whichever you want. Eventually we chose a ground cover and made the boys spread it around and cover up the drip lines.  It looked really nice and we were quite happy with the result and ended up doing the back yard as well because, damn, this looks good! But we were left with a slightly disappointed feeling. Who wants a wimpy HOA that just rolls over at the first sign of conflict?  And then we realized that we'd done exactly what they wanted us to do and we hadn't even responded to the first volley.  It was a bloodless coup. They waited us out. Those motherfuckers.