Filed on September 19, 2026
(Satire. Fiction. No real HOA, Board, person, or wedding — only the idea of a neighborhood that is definitely not this one. Entertainment only.)
Every autumn the Board hosts the Annual Potluck, and every autumn the neighborhood pretends it is a simple celebration of community. Long folding tables groan under casseroles. Someone’s grandmother brings her jellied salad, which is regarded less as food and more as a family heirloom. A man in a sweater vest reads a poem about the changing light.
This year, House Flamingo was invited. This was the trap.
We arrived as a block — seven of us in matching pink, which we thought was a delight and the Board thought was a statement of war. The old guard greeted us warmly, the way a host greets guests he has already decided not to seat at the good table.
The Board President raised a glass. “To neighbors,” he said, “who come together, no matter their differences.”
And then the evening began to tighten, the way these evenings do.
First came the toast to the Fine Schedule, which we applauded because we had no choice.
Then came the ceremonial announcement of the Mulch By-law, delivered not as a decree but as a “friendly reminder,” which in the Hollow is the deadliest form of attack. “Red mulch,” the President said, “is an act of aggression. The Board is therefore proposing, at the next session, that the Hollow adopt a single, unifying, approved brown.”
And then — because these things always have a third act — came the voting.
The bread basket was passed. The biscuits were still warm. A woman from House Rose smiled at me from across the table and patted the seat beside her, motherly, terrible. I rose to make a joke, a plea for the flamingos, a small joke about the eighteen inches of decorum.
I never got to the punchline.
Because at that moment, my own neighbors — the ones who had come with me — produced, from beneath the folding tables, seventeen plastic flamingos in a single, coordinated, silent arc.
The Board President did not shout. He looked at the flamingos the way a king looks at an army he did not know had crossed the river. His mouth opened. Then closed.
“Electoral conduct,” he said, very softly, “is a serious matter.”
“Enjoy the salad,” I said, and sat down.
Outside, along the street, the neighborhood remembered. And for one shining moment, the Chair — beige, wheel-locked, faintly stale — was the least important seat in the room.