Robert A. Mills, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Robert A. Mills
FBI 2/9/2013 6:32:20 AM
For years, I had permission from the manager of Kroger’s to toss what junk we generated at home into his dumpster behind the store. I usually drove my refuse over there on Sunday mornings and wrestled with dumpster’s lid to dispose of the trash.
Unfortunately, the manager not only got transferred to a bigger store, but they eventually closed that Kroger’s altogether. (Perhaps my book signings had something to do with its demise.)
I asked them if I could continue using the dumpster, and for a couple years no one cared, so long as I limited my dumps to no more than two black trash bags and an occasional white one, all securely tied.
Eventually, 80% of the plaza was closed and remodeling began, and a new theater chain bought a sizable portion of the original structure; they are in the process of building a humongous “dinner/theater” that will show first-run movies and serve multi-course dinners and drinks. I am not sure, but they may seat 50,000 or so comfortably. At least, the neighborhood scuttlebutt says so.
In any event, my days of using the now non-existent dumpster have come to an end.
Not a day too soon, as I can no longer lift the angry bags into the car — not to mention lifting them into a dumpster — nor can I drive my car to the area behind the shopping plaza (even a handicap sign dangling from the rear-view mirror is as worthless as I).
Coincidentally, our Home Owners Association (or someone) recently cut a deal with Waste Management to provide receptacles and a subdivision-wide pricing arrangement to pick up trash and recyclable items each week from curbside at the end of the driveway. What a timely bonanza!
They even provide us with a gigantic receptacle on wheels, which will hold a trove of trash and can easily be wheeled from the garage to the end of the drive for Monday morning pickup (all I have to do is convince my dutiful wife she is the best candidate for implementing the maneuver).
And the total cost of this marvelous innovation is less than $15 a month per neighbor!
Some say it is about time the HOA (or someone) did something worthwhile for our subdivision. The $600 annual fee, a true hardship for retired blokes on a fixed income, such as I, allegedly covers the pool, playground, lighted tennis courts, clubhouse maintenance, entrance landscaping, appropriate insurance, and sundry other important necessities.
I, for one, rarely, if ever, use the pool (the playground is a joke where not even the most derelict homeless person would be caught dead. Little kids and dogs apparently care less.)
Although we have lived here since 1993, I played my last tennis match under the aegis of ALTA in 2003.
We did make use of the clubhouse once in 2001. We held our daughter’s 16th birthday party there (it was a disaster for which we paid $25 rent plus the fee for a horrible DJ). But it was her 16th birthday — the event, in retrospect, was worth $5,847,621.14!
I remember a free pool party I attended in 2011. Although I did not so much as dip a tootsie in the water, the cheeseburgers were superb — thanks mainly to the neighbor who prepared mine. “Here, let me fix that!” she said. “I know you have issues with your hand!”
In 1994 there was the time some miscreant took a shot at me with a long-range rifle. The bullet penetrated the picture window above the Jacuzzi in the master bath — a huge structure at least ten feet above the line-of-sight — leaving a hole the size of a nickel and a stream of shattered glass that extended twenty yards into the bedroom!
I immediately called in my neighbor, an FBI agent, who said, “You haven’t lived here long enough to have enemies who want to kill you. That usually takes five year. I have put many away who would like to take a shot at me. They probably mistook your house for mine. Better call the police.”
The Cobb County officer found a big marble in the driveway, beneath my damaged picture window. “Musta been some kid with a slingshot,” he said. “Maybe he hates Yankees from New York.”
I first met the FBI agent when I moved into the subdivision. One Sunday I accidentally locked myself out, and I went to him for beer and sympathy.
“I can unlock your door,” he told me, “but you cannot watch me.” With his back blocking my view, he performed his magic — and voila! — I was back in the house ten seconds later!
I rarely see the former FBI agent anymore; he retired and took a job with “security” at Delta Airlines. I see him and his wife at church on Christmas and Easter, although Mrs. Agent never speaks to my wife or me. We have no idea why.
Speaking of the church, the deacon there is the father of my daughter’s husband, so of course the Wedding of The Century was held there, officiated by our close friend, the late Rev. Patricia Roberts.
The reception was held in the church’s Parish Hall, decorated to the 9s with Japanese Lanterns, a dance floor and ornate tables with thousands of floral arrangements — not to mention a plethora of enticing libations as we continued the celebration (the regular priest was away on vacation, and the deacon was in charge).
Unbeknownst to me at the time, the church had provided an elderly and infirm parishioner with a “stair-lift”. A year or so later, when I was diagnosed with a progressively debilitating disease, the “stair-lift” was designated for me once the unfortunate lady had shuffled off her mortal coil.
The lady passed away as 2012 was fading. I have yet to see the stair-lift.
Perhaps I had best call the former FBI agent.
