The Landings: Pure Comedy

I miss the days of living in the Landings neighborhood here in Sarasota. ...Not quite enough to want to be back there, but the regular comedy provided by the neighborhood rules, the insanity of "neighborly" aggression and residents terrified of nature were pretty much unbeatable. Just a few of my fondest Landings memories include...

• My father being woken up at 2:30 a.m. by the guard house to a warning that we were breaching the neighborhood covenant by mistakenly leaving our garage door open.
• Residents calling the cops to remove an alligator in one of the neighborhood wetlands...just because it was there. (This was a frequent occurrence.)
• Countless $100 fines for brother being "caught" on the nature trail at night.
• A resident claiming that kangaroos came out on the streets at night. And they were big.
• Having a woman stalk me in her car to see if I would clean up the defecation of my now deceased (and legendary) yellow lab...even before he stopped to take one. The second the act originated, she started screaming wildly, "You gotta clean that up! You gotta clean that up!"

My bro (now in Texas) is at home with a new baby and apparently bored to the point of checking out the newest Landings news online. So happy to hear a report that things are still just as hilarious as they were years ago.

In the recent Landings news, we have reports of the security guard being summoned by a homeowner to clean up dog poo that a walker failed to pick up and a call from a neighbor concerned about a woman sprawled out in her driveway...who was just drunk, for the love of Pete, and just wanted to spend the night outside. All I have to say is, mind your own feaking business and learn to deal with poop in life--literally--people!

It's still a damn shame we're not part of the excitement anymore. And like always, I wonder how the residents would react if a real tragedy hit, God forbid. Thank goodness for the entertainment provided at Landings online.