From Dictionary.com, Community: a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
For the most part, we all live in them. We seek out companionship, sometimes with similar people (similar age, similar ethnicity, similar religion). Some of us might really have more than one community to which we belong. For example, the town in which I live is one community to which I belong, my synagogue is another, shoot, one could even say the forums to which I belong (e.g., SlowTalk.com) are another, each has a “government” accepted by those being governed with the agreement that those being governed will adhere to the rules created by the government.
What I never get though, is people who feel the rules of their community don’t apply to them.
About five years ago, give or take some, my parents moved to one of those age-restricted developments in Florida. Eighty percent of the people who live in this development must be over the age of 50 (don’t even get me started on that concept). What I find increasingly ironic though and therefore, increasingly funny, are the stories my parents tell me of their fellow community members. You would think that the primarily over 60 crowd, would “know better.” I mean we’re not talking children here who may not yet understand the concept of right and wrong. Nor are we talking about teenagers whose job it is to “rebel against the man.” We’re talking grown adults, who have presumably lived, worked, raised families and obeyed the communal laws of their societies for their entire lives … or are we?
For example, in the cafe, when you buy the sandwich special, you get the drink for free. They give you a nice styrofoam cup, in which you can pour your own soda, and while you’re at the cafe, you may help yourself to free refills. So what’s with the people, who take said styrofoam cup home, wash it out, and return the next day, and the next, and the next, helping themselves to soda as they see fit. How is this not stealing?
Or there’s the couple that arrived at the pool house in order to pick up their lounge chairs from the pool deck. You see, they never use the communal pool but since their dues go to support the pool, they thought themselves entitled to two lounge chairs that they could bring home to use on their patio. They were stopped.
Let’s not forget, the gentlemen who play water polo each week. One day they arrived at the pool to discover it was closed for 24 hours because it was being treated with chemicals (aka shocked or cleaned). These men though, felt they had the right to play their game, and snuck in to the pool area, through the sauna (I believe), and entered the pool. When asked to leave by the staff so the pool could be treated, they refused.
Huh?
I won’t even get into the reason why buffets are no longer served at member functions but you can imagine.
So here’s my question? Why live in these places if you don’t agree with the rules? If you don’t want to pay dues? Why live in a community at all?
[…] though no more juicy stories about the residents of my parents’ development believing the rules don’t apply to them. This one is a bit closer to […]
I read this a few days ago and it stuck with me. This kind of stuff drives me NUTS! Why do people get so petty? I guess these old folks are going through their teenage rebellion very, very late!
Oh I so hear ya, sister! That sort of thing drives me nuts. I attended a day long seminar where we set ground rules up front. The group’s main concern was punctuality – the meeting was to run ON TIME…period. They were concerned that the facilitator would run late and they’d miss their bus or something, I don’t remember the exact reason. (I didn’t care if we stuck to the clock or not, but had no objection to the rule.) But then half the group were late getting back from breaks and lunch, cutting into presentation time – hello??