Friday Night Bingo & the Hijacked HOA: A Cautionary Tale
It all started innocently enough—with a sensible amount of bourbon in my travel mug and a dauber that matched my lipstick. I showed up at the rec hall for Friday Night Bingo ready to win, flirt with the widowers, and make exactly the right number of enemies.
Things were going smooth until Constance “Connie” Parsnip-Loomis, head of the HOA, swanned in wearing her rhinestone visor and an attitude two sizes too tight. Picture a hummingbird that got into the Botox and now thinks it’s in charge of FEMA. That’s Connie. She once fined me for “unlicensed decorative yard poultry.” (It was one flamingo. One.)
Now, Connie doesn't play bingo to relax—she plays to dominate. She brought her custom bingo tray, personalized chips, and a clipboard labeled “Observations.” If that doesn’t scream buzzkill with spreadsheet energy, I don’t know what does.
About three rounds in, Terry from the next street over yelled “BINGO!” just milliseconds after I did. Connie, naturally, inserted herself as the self-appointed auditor of daubing accuracy, and accused both of us of suspicious daubing behavior. “Double bingo? Not statistically probable,” she hissed, like that was the most damning math she’d ever seen.
Well. That didn’t sit well with Terry, who once arm-wrestled a sheriff over an unpaid parking ticket. And me? I simply removed my earrings and said, “Connie, darling, if you want a fight, all you had to do was say so. But you best put your clipboard down unless you’re planning to swing it.”
That’s when someone—probably Phyllis—pulled the fire alarm.
Chairs were overturned. Daubers flew like holy water at a demonic tent revival. Connie fled out the back door clutching her bingo tray like it was the Holy Grail and muttering something about “calling the regional office.”
And wouldn’t you know it? I still walked out with the prize basket.
Which, for the record, contained three cans of creamed corn, a scented candle that smells like tax fraud, and a $5 gift card to Arby’s.
📌 Loretta’s Lessons:
Never trust someone whose clipboard has monogrammed initials.
Bingo is not a game. It is a battlefield.
HOA Presidents are like vampires—you have to invite them in, and I never will again.
Until next week,
Stay weird, stay bingo-ready, and never surrender your dauber.
—Loretta Mae
