Fair Game

By Eda Suzanne, Guest Author

I write satires about folks I know have a keen sense of humor.  On the rare occasion I unintentionally step on someone’s toes, I go on a chocolate binge until my guilt for unintentionally hurting them subsides.  When I started to blog, other writers cautioned me the day would come that I would have to write about folks I do not know personally or I’d run out of material.  However, until recently, I have resisted temptation to write about strangers.

A few weeks ago, I sat in the audience next to my husband facing the stage where the Board of Directors of our Active Senior Community was perched.  A tall, dignified man was first to address the Board with his concern.  “I want to know what the Board of Directors plans to do about the over-population of squirrels in our community?”

With disbelief, I listened to each word the speaker uttered.  There’s potential humor—meaning a blog for me— when a mentally sound person with a probable graduate degree in something intelligent thinks the Board of Directors has the power, money, or desire to stop squirrels from climbing on his screens or scurrying in the streets.  I wondered if he was going to request beebee guns for each homeowner to scare away nature’s creatures—or perhaps bows and arrows, although with the arthritic pains half my peers have in their fingers or shoulders, I doubt if we could shoot very far, if at all.

Once home, my fingers started to type and the words appeared on the screen.  I stopped mid-sentence.  “I don’t know this guy,” I said to my husband.  “I don’t know if he has a funny-bone.  I’m breaking my own vow.”

“Comedians do it to strangers all the time,” Hubby said.  “Didn’t the comic we heard the other night have us doubled over with laughter while satirizing our generation?”

“Yes, but jokes about Botoxed faces on octogenarian necks don’t single one person out,” I said.

My husband reminded me how the people who called out responses to the comic’s questions were the butt of jokes and folks laughed.  “At this stage of our lives, anyone who sits front and center or calls out an answer to the comedian wants to be part of the act.  Same is true for anyone who speaks loud and clear in public knowing others can easily hear them.  They are fair game for to be satirized.”

Though I agreed with his words, I still felt uncomfortable about satirizing someone whose nose might end up out of joint.  I love my Seniorville—my nickname for active senior communities.  I don’t want folks afraid to speak freely if I’m in the room.

A few days later—still unsure if I should write the Squirrel Eliminator blog—I was told by a reliable source that someone complained to the receptionist in the clubhouse about the lack of water in the manmade lakes in our complex.  “I paid for waterfront property, and that is what I want!” the person supposedly insisted.

It is common knowledge to anyone living in my part of the country that we’re having a record drought.  You don’t need a PhD in anything to know that lakes and canals dry up without rain.  In fact, you don’t even need a grade school diploma.  Filling them with hoses attached to fire hydrants or wherever hoses can get water as this person was requesting—and I’m told this is actually done in some places—is kind of against the law when watering restrictions are in effect.  By the time my source was done telling me the story, I decided it may not be open season on shooting squirrels in Seniorville, but it is for satirizing the very few silly folks who give the vast majority of intelligent folks residing in Seniorvilles across the USA a bad rep.

And when the rainy season literally falls upon us—and I hope it is soon—I’m going to the Town Hall meeting just in case one of the sillies will be there wanting to know what the Board will do about the rain that keeps falling on their head when they’re on the walking path!  And if one does, I’ll be sure to write about it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A native Long Islander, Eda Suzanne relocated to South Florida along with her husband and two small sons in the early 70s.  Eda earned her BS in Education from NYU and her Master’s Degree as a Reading Specialist at Nova University.  After retiring from teaching, she dedicated her newfound free time to writing and spending quality time with her family and friends.  Recently, Eda and her husband moved from the home where they raised their family to a very active Seniorville in Palm Beach County.

ABOUT HER BOOK:

When Eda Suzanne announced she was retiring from teaching, her friends warned her she would be a nobody without her job.  In her satirical book, Retired NOT Expired, Ms. Suzanne shares her hilarious experiences as she paddles upstream reinventing her new eclectic life and proves the naysayers wrong.  The book is filled with humorous vignettes such as Thermostat Genie.   Although Eda Suzanne’s intended audience was those readers about to retire, fans have written Ms. Suzanne that the book should be required reading for all baby boomers, working or retired.  Everyone can identify with a funny story about unending sibling rivalry or dealing with constant changes in technology.

Retired NOT Expired is available on Amazon.com in paperback.  More information can be found on www.edasuzanne.com.  Her blog, Eda’s Wit and Wisdom, written in the same voice as her book, can be viewed at www.edasuzanne.blogspot.com

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