Public service, mostly

Field Guides

Everything the orientation packet should have covered. Two guides, both deadpan, both containing the occasional fact that snuck in by accident.

YIELD
MEANS
YIELD

CROC
X-ING

DO NOT ENTER
(you know who you are)

Roundabout Survival Guide

The roundabout is not a stop sign, a four-way negotiation, a dare, or a personal attack on your morning. It is a circle. You drive around the circle. We promise it is going to be okay.

The one rule

Yield to traffic already in the circle. That is the rule. That is the whole rule. Everything below is just that rule, explained again for people who have strong feelings about it.

Myth: You must come to a complete stop before entering.

Fact: You stop only if someone is coming. If the circle is empty, you flow. Stopping at an empty roundabout is its own kind of crime against the people behind you.

Myth: Whoever is loudest has the right of way.

Fact: Whoever is already in the circle has the right of way. Volume is not a traffic signal, no matter how committed you are to it.

Myth: You may stop in the middle of the roundabout to wave someone in.

Fact: Please do not. Kindness is wonderful. A stationary car in a roundabout is not kindness, it is a monument.

Signaling

Signal right as you approach your exit. Yes, people will be surprised. Surprise them anyway. Be the change.

Speed Limit Compliance Bureau

The Bureau exists to track, catalog, and quietly admire the speed limit signs of Fanning Bayou, a collection that grows in both number and ambition each season.

Current posture

The limit is the number on the sign.
The number on the sign is also the limit.
If you encounter two signs disagreeing, obey the lower one and report the pair to the Bulletin under Speed Limit Watch for our records.

On the proliferation of signage

Some residents feel there are now enough signs. Other residents have filed to request a fourth. The Bureau takes no position, except to note that a sign cannot make a straight road less straight, which is, if we are honest, the actual problem.

A note from the Bureau

Slowing down genuinely helps. Not because of the signs. Because of the kids, the dogs, the mailboxes, and the neighbor doing the four-finger wave. The signs are just trying their best.

Crocodile Coexistence Guide

The retention pond came with tenants. They were here before the cul-de-sac, before the roundabout, and long before the HOA. Coexistence is not a policy, it is the arrangement.

The rules of the pond

Do not feed them. A fed crocodile loses its fear of people and its sense of boundaries, much like a comment section.
Do not swim. The pond is decorative. It has always been decorative. It is now aggressively decorative.
Keep small dogs leashed near the water. This is the one rule here that is not a joke.
Do not name them. Naming leads to attachment, attachment leads to a GoFundMe, and the GoFundMe leads to a 200-comment thread.
Report sightings to the Bulletin under Crocodile Watch, so the rest of us know which end of the pond to respect today.

Myth: It is a small one.

Fact: It is never a small one. By the third comment it is nine feet long and made eye contact with a child.

Myth: Technically it is an alligator, so the whole page is wrong.

Fact: The neighborhood has had this exact debate four hundred times. Around here we call them crocodiles and get on with our day.

Yard & Weed Compliance

Few forces in Fanning Bayou are as relentless as a weed, except the neighbor who noticed it. This section keeps the peace between the two.

What counts as a weed

Officially, the answer lives in a PDF nobody can find. Unofficially, a weed is any plant your neighbor did not personally approve. The two definitions overlap less than you would hope.

On fines

The first letter is a friendly reminder.
The second letter is the same as the first, but disappointed.
The third letter has a number on it.

Easement diplomacy

The strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road is technically the county's, spiritually nobody's, and emotionally whoever last mowed it. Mow a little past your line. It is the cheapest goodwill in the neighborhood, second only to the wave.

A note on the reporting

If you are about to photograph a neighbor's lawn for evidence, consider instead doing nearly anything else. Take it to the Bulletin under Weed & Yard Watch, where grievances belong.

The Fence (a developing situation)

A fence is going up along Merrion Road, between the subdivision and the trailers. Officially it is about aesthetics and property values. Unofficially it is six feet of plank quietly admitting that we got a little nervous about people who have done nothing to us.

The Bureau's position, for the record: a fence keeps out precisely nobody you were worried about, and it definitely keeps out the guy on Merrion with the generator and the smoker who would have absolutely helped you move a couch. That is the trade we are making.

The recommended posture

Wave over the fence. It costs nothing, it is the neighborly move, and a fence has never once stopped a wave. The folks on the other side turn out to be, on inspection, just neighbors with a shorter walk to the water.