Welcome to the Neighborhood

Yesterday Anne and Juliet were in the midst of deep, refreshing, Friday afternoon nap, when they were stirred awake by the phone. The shaky voice on the other end said the Director of the Complex wanted to come down and welcome us to the neighborhood. Anne quickly shot up and readied herself for his arrival. Three minutes later, he rang the doorbell (which coincidentally plays “The Yellow Rose of Texas”) and presented Anne with a bouquet of flowers. The encounter went something like this:

Anne: “Thank you – pink roses – my favorite!”
Manager: “Oh what a happy coincidence. Where do you come from …America?”
Anne (like a true southerner): “Yes, we’re the Richardsons and we come from Texas in the USA. My husband’s name is Scott and I’m Anne.”
Manager: “Ohhhh – so your people come from Scotland?”
Anne: “Oh No. My husband’s name is Scott and my name is Anne.”
Manager (confused): “So you both come from Texas?”
Anne (not realizing some information is just too much information): “No I come from Texas and Scott comes from Kansas – we met in college.”
Manager: “What a romantic, happy story.”

A few minutes after he left, Anne curiously noticed several men hauling off large chunks of timber and leaves. After thinking to herself “Huh, that’s a bit odd,” she shrugged it off and attributed it to the construction going on next door. Three hours later, after Scott had arrived home from work, we noticed our landlord’s wife and Thomas milling around in our front yard. We went outside to find out what was going on. What we discovered was the trellis over our covered parking area next to the garage had been knocked down in several places and there was a big hole in the ground next to the driveway. Thomas said to us, “What, you guys didn’t know that about four hours ago, lightning struck the tree that used to be here?” Anne turned to Scott, shrugged and said, “No Clue.”