Have you ever been on the wrong side of a homeowners association? This storyteller certainly has, and his tale is incredible!
A Beloved Old Car
Meet the OP (original poster), a high schooler with an old car that he loves despite its lack of trade-in value. One day at his friend’s house, he put his hood up and checked the car’s oil level.
Little did he know that this would set off a chain of events that would lead to one of the most hilarious high school stunts in HOA history.
When his friend’s mother came home and saw the car with the hood up, she told them about a warning she had received from the HOA about repairing cars in the driveway.
OP and his friend explained that they weren’t repairing anything, they were just checking the oil level. But then they read the HOA rules together and found out that there was a bylaw that said you couldn’t repair a car in the driveway.
OP protested that he wasn’t repairing anything, but the rules on exactly what was forbidden sparked an idea.
“Fight the Power?”
Looking at his friend, OP raised an eyebrow and said, “Fight the power?” His friend responded with a resounding, “FIGHT THE POWER!” And thus began the most ridiculous high school prank ever!
Every day after school, OP and his friend drove their cars to his friend’s house, parked in their driveway, raised the hoods, and just looked at the engines. But they didn’t touch the cars. They didn’t even check the oil.
They just exposed their cars to the sky, the birds, and God above to let them breathe. It was a protest of the HOA’s ridiculous bylaw that made no sense. But it didn’t stop there.
OP got bored of just looking at his engine, so he started setting up an easel and drawing it for ten minutes at a time. Of course, his friend had to one-up him and decided he needed some artistic photos with his engine.
The best photos, he decided, would be him laying over the engine shirtless, stroking and fake kissing it. It was absurd, over-the-top, and completely moronic, but they were teenagers, and that’s what teenagers do.
Like Bees to Honey
Predictably, the HOA was on them like bees to honey. The warnings quickly turned into fines, complete with pictures of both vehicles with their hoods up. Then more pictures of OP’s car with its hood up and an easel in front.
Then even more pictures of his friend’s car with its hood up, him lying in the engine compartment, and OP taking pictures of him with a camera!
But they didn’t back down. When his friend’s mother received her monthly HOA meeting notice, all three of them went to protest the fines. They printed out some of his friend’s boudoir engine photos larger than normal and brought the OP’s engine drawing with them.
When they got there, the HOA board members were not happy. They expected the mother to play the “my son and his friend are morons, please make these fines go away since I didn’t know what they were doing” sympathy card.
But she didn’t. She politely but firmly attested that they were sending her fines for something that wasn’t in the bylaws and asked the board to stop.
One of the board members spoke up, saying that working on cars was against the bylaws, and clearly, that’s what was going on since both hoods were up. But they didn’t know what they were in for.
It’s All in the Details!
The mother corrected them that the bylaw said no repairs were allowed, that no tools were visible in any of the pictures and that they were just doing art projects for school.
She showed them OP’s (truthfully completely terrible) drawing of his engine, along with the date-stamped-a-couple-weeks-ago pictures of his friend trying to seduce his engine.
The HOA president called for a five-minute recess, during which the board huddled in the corner of the room. After the recess, the president said, “M’am, we are going to dismiss all your fines. Have a nice evening.”
The protagonist and his friend nearly danced out of that meeting. They were thrilled that their plan worked, and they were now HOA outlaws.
They continued their daily ritual of opening their car hoods to let them breathe, just to make sure the HOA didn’t send them any more fines. They wisely didn’t, and being victorious, OP and his friend soon found other ways to annoy them!
It just goes to show that sticking up for yourself can work out, and sometimes all it takes is a shirtless guy and a camera!
Reddit users loved this tale. One said, “A true tale of David and Goliath, but instead of a slingshot, it was sexy engine photos. Gotta love teenage rebellion, especially when it’s in the form of engine seduction.”
What do you think about this guy’s story? They showed the HOA the stupidity of their rules. Have you ever been up against an HOA?
The post They Were Determined to “Fight the Power,” So They Raised Their Hoods Daily in Defiance and Lured the HOA in Hook, Line and Sinker! first appeared on Mama Say What?!
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / PeopleImages.com – Yuri A. The people shown in the images are for illustrative purposes only, not the actual people featured in the story.
Source: Reddit