My plan to rule the world starts small

So, apparently, I’m now part of a neighborhood association. Until recently, when a letter arrived informing me of an upcoming meeting, I was unaware of this fact.

It happened when I moved into the Little House on the Prairie that I share with Lori (or that, technically, she shares with me since she was living here first).

The house is located dead center of the middle of nowhere. We barely have neighbors; the idea that the few we do have should have at some point formed an association seems strange to me. I mean, we’re all only marginally living in the same time zone.

The folks at the west end of the road speak with a different accent than those of us living on the east end.

OK, we may not be as spread out as all that, but it’s close.

There are so few members in the association that almost all of them serve on the association’s Board of Directors. Lori herself was treasurer for a while, before she got tired of dealing with the association’s most pressing political issue: snow plowing.

Our street is private, which sounds swanky, but isn’t. What it really means is, when it comes to public services, we’re on our own. As far as the city, county and state are concerned, come February we can all freeze to death beneath a six-foot blanket of ice and snow. They’re not getting involved.

I’m not sure why this is. I mean, I’m an American. I pay taxes (at least when the IRS gets all snippy about it). I vote for the candidates and issues that seem least stupid to me on election day.

And still, no government agency is willing to do diddley when it comes to lending us country bumpkins a helping hand.

So we have the association. There may be as many as 25 members, but only about a dozen of these show up for meetings.  Of those, fully 100 percent are retired folks with nothing better to do between reruns of “Matlock” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

Like I mentioned earlier, the most pressing topic at these meetings is how to get the snow off the road. 

I’m thinking of changing all that, starting with the next meeting. I figure, since we’re on our own for the most part anyway, maybe it’s time we declare our independence from the rest of Ionia County, Michigan and even the U.S. of A.

I even have an idea who our first president should be. 

Once I’m set up in the Oval Office (OK, Hank’s pole barn), I plan to consolidate my power. There’s another neighborhood association just a block over; they have virtually no defenses.

They will make easy pickings for my army of old guys on riding mowers. 

Once conquered, we can put the members of that other association to work, maybe clearing the snow from our road.