You WILL Get Caught!
In this blog: Hall Monitor at Meadow Lakes
Remember this: Are My Testicles Black?
Alphonso’s Cozy Winter Casserole
Notes from Joy
The BOOB Girl Books
Hall Monitor at Meadow Lakes
The rules were many and every resident at Meadow Lakes Retirement Community knew
they were important during this horrendous and tragic pandemic. The upside: everyone
was as safe as possible. The downside: it gave some people a chance to wield undeserved
and extremely annoying power.
Such was the case of Beulah Buttsrock: Hall Monitor.
Beulah was short, plump, had white hair and glasses. This describes 68% of the female
residents at any retirement community. Beulah went into another percentage block when
we count in her state-of-the- art walker, complete with comfortable leather seat she could
use as a chair by simply turning the thing around.
Beulah, stanchly poised behind her walker, was a roamer. She walked the halls of Meadow
Lakes incessantly. She could be seen on the second floor by the mailboxes, carefully
keeping a six-foot distance from everyone and glaring if anyone came an inch closer. If
she went to the front desk, she stood back and glared some more. On the third floor she
had actually been seen slipping around corners to see if she could spot someone taking off
their mask before entering their apartment. It was paradise for Beulah.
“She caught me singing as I came down the hall,” Robbie complained. “She said,
‘Robinson, you can’t sing”
“Well,” Hadley smiled, “gotta admit that’s true.”
Raven reached over and gave Robbie’s knee a teasing pat.
They were gathered, coffee cups in hand, in Alphonso Greatwood’s massive office at
Meadow Lakes. Alphonso could have an office as massive as he liked. He owned the
place.
“Yeah, right,” Robbie said. “And I said, ‘I know, that’s what everybody tells me.’ Then
Beulah said, ‘You can’t sing in the halls, even with your mask on! It spreads the virus.’”
Robbie looked around.
“There was no one there!” she said. “I was alone in the hall! She tried to take away my
happy.”
They could tell she was pissed.
“She told Wiley and me we had to stay six feet apart, even though we’re married!” Mary
Rose added.
“Not gonna happen, sweetheart,” Wiley said, grinning at Mary Rose.
“She told me if I went to visit my granddaughter, the nurse, I had to quarantine for two
weeks, even if there were just the two of us.”
“Does Jessi live out of town?” Robbie asked. She knew the answer.
Hadley shrugged. She knew the answer, too. “Of course not! And you only have to
quarantine if you go out of state for Pete’s sake.”
“I’ve got to admit,” Marge said. “She’s never bothered me.”
"I don’t bother you either!” Alphonso said.
They laughed and nodded. No one bothered Marge Aaron, retired homicide detective.
“Or me” Raven said. “But I try to make most people afraid of Apaches.”
“So, we got even,” Robbie said with a wicked smile. “We decorated her walker.”
“I supplied the stuff,” Mary Rose said proudly and moving to the end of her seat.
“Here’s what we did,” Hadley said, taking over. “You know, Beulah always parks her
walker just outside her door. So last night, after she went to bed…”
“Always at 8:30,” Robbie interrupted.
“Right,” Hadley continued, “after she went to bed we slipped up to her apartment, put the
world’s ugliest white tinsel rope around the handles and every rod going to the four wheels
of the walker, hung big plastic snowflakes all over the handles, put a horrible fluffy cover
on the seat with ‘Bitch Seat’ on it…”
“I made the cover!” Mary Rose bragged, bouncing just a little. “And that tinsel sheds!” she
added seriously.
Alphonso, Wiley, and Raven looked on in amazement. The girls were crazy with
excitement.
Marge couldn’t resist. “I helped. I went to the dollar store and got a big badge that said,
‘Hall Monitor’. “
“We hung that on the front of the walker,” Mary Rose added.
We glued awful white flowers onto the wheels” Mary Rose said with a smile.
They looked at each other with proud grins. Since they were all sitting six feet apart, they
did an air-high five, grinning even more.
Just as they were leaning back in their chairs with smug, smart-ass smiles on their faces,
Alphonso’s office door opened with a loud bang.
Beulah Buttsrock stood in the doorway, hands on her tinseled rocker handles and a glare in
her beady little eyes.
“Look at this, Alphonso Greatwood!” she said loudly. “I want to thank you! Finally, you
recognized the full value of good disciple and leadership.”
She looked at the girls.
The girls were looking at the walker. The tinsel had begun to sag and droop from the
handlebars. A four-inch length of the rope already hung from one handle and two ugly
white flowers had been mashed into the wheels. The Bitch Seat was still in good shape,
however.
“And ladies, I know you did this and I’m grateful to you, too. I now have a colorful and
noticeable identity as the official hall monitor!”
She took out the Hall Monitor badge Marge had provided and pinned it onto her dress top.
“You know I’m not into receiving awards in public and this was the best surprise since
I’ve been a resident here.”
She nodded at Alphonso, turned, and went out the door.
Total silence.
“She meant it,” Robbie finally said.
“And she thinks I did it all.” Alphonso added. He looked at the girls. “You have created a
monster and I get the credit for it.”
Only Marge and Raven had the nerve to grin.
Remember this? Are My Testicles Black? (Book I)
They had just met, four widows in the dining room of their retirement community,
having dinner together for the first time. They didn’t know they would become the
symbol of women’s friendships in years to come.
Maggie Patten, a tough Sandhills rancher, Hadley Joy Morris Whitfield, a socialite,
Dr. Robinson Leary, black professor from Creighton University and Mary Rose
McGill, a sweet Catholic girl had clicked. They already loved each other.
They had talked on long after dinner when Maggie leaned over to Robinson Leary
and asked with a grin, “Tell me. Do black men have black balls?”
They all looked at her, then Robbie Le