Before and After

Cute Handyman was here today.

I am happy.

Once again he came in under estimate. That makes me happy, too.

No. Just no.

We had a condo association meeting last night. Everyone but me had complaints and was very angry about something.

Especially my downstairs neighbor Sally. She moved into Crazy Old Neighbor's unit a few years ago. In her 40s, she's deaf and slightly disabled due to a stroke. Earlier last week, when I was picking up my mail, she asked me if I'd sit with her at the meeting and type so that she could see what's being said. I said "sure." Why not? I type for a living. I'm very fast, and it seemed like a nice, neighborly thing to do.

So I'm sitting with Sally, my fingers flying over the keyboard, writing things like, "Kelli wants to know why the building isn't FHA approved anymore" and "Jackie wants to know if the security cameras are working."

Mr. B., an elderly condo owner with a huge sense of entitlement, is on the condo board. He has responsibility for things like the annual budget, establishing priorities for repairs, dealing with the insurance company, etc. He rolled in without a single piece of paper. Nothing to write on, no notes from the last meeting. Just his old self.

As the other owners were getting angrier and angrier at him and the management company for everything that's wrong, he had nothing to say. Neither did Jennifer, the other board member in attendance. (The third board member, Angela, didn't even show up.)

Twice, during the meeting, when someone asked Mr. B. if the board was going to issue minutes of this meeting to all the (angry) condo owners, he indicated that I would do it since I was taking it all down.

"No," I said. Twice. "I'm doing this as a favor to Sally so she understands what's being said. This isn't for anyone but Sally."

The third time when he indicated that I would publish my "Sally notes" to the group, I said, "NO! I'm running out of ways to say it: NO!"

Mr. B. looked all faux hurt, but I ain't buying. I'm a condo owner, not a board member. He's supposed to be looking out for us, serving us, not the other way around. Secondly, I'm not his administrative assistant and it's insulting that he thinks because of his age he can boss me around.