[Thank you, Lois, for sharing this story. I hope we hear more about Harry.]

All About Harry

There is a little old cantankerous man that moved into Geezerville. Harry is a short, thin man with a full head of silver hair and for the most part, is still quite mobile. He drives an ancient “boulevard barge”. Mostly, it looks like the remnants of some sort of Mercury. The black paint job is faded and blotchy, there are scrapes up and down the sides, and a few dimples added to the bumpers. The front end is soooo long; it smashes into the hedge when it finally comes to a full and complete stop. Poor hedge is now pretty beat up, all mangled and bare at the end of his parking space.

One day, I was driving north when I could not believe my eyes, there was Harry’s car in front of me. Had to be ~, there certainly couldn’t be another like it in this neck of the woods. The huge hunk of machinery was floating in and out of its lane, yet I had to give Harry credit…. Although he was driving slowly, he was at least driving somewhat close to the posted speed limit. There were other cars around him that managed to get past him and I decided to speed up and get out of harms way, too. I admit I was white knuckled for the next few minutes. You know, since then, I still see Harry’s car come and go from the parking lot, but it is “docked” more and more these days which is a good thing.

Sad to report that earlier this year, Harry’s wife passed away and Harry became the sole caretaker of her scrappy little dog I refer to as “Snarly”. I have personally encountered the little beast on a few occasions and it is yappy critter.

It wasn’t long before the other residents came to resent Harry. Harry does at least walk Snarly several times a day, but he wasn’t picking up after it (you know what I mean). And, when Harry would leave his apartment, Snarly would bark incessantly. The ladies who live in his end of the building asked the managers to get rid of him or the dog (or both). Of course, that didn’t happen, but the manager must have told him to pick up after Snarly as that is no longer an issue.

Well, last week Harry was strolling down the corridor to lunch and just before he entered the dining room, his pants fell down to his ankles. At that very moment, Ruby opened her apartment door. Now, you can just imagine the expression on her face when she saw that sight!

It gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). Harry then bent over to pick up his pants when he let out a really loud accidental fart. Well, needless to say, Ruby was HORRIFIED! (Since older folks don’t tend to hear very well, I can only wonder just how loud it really was.)

After lunch, Ruby was still fuming and so she went to the manager’s office to complain and ask that they eject Harry from the place. I would love to have listened to Ruby tell the managers what happened. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face.

As of now, Harry is still living there. And, there will, no doubt, be more to this story …