When I was eight years old, my parents and I moved into a quiet neighborhood on the edge of a town

I'd never heard of before. The houses were identical in a way that made it hard to tell which ones were ours at first.

Same pale sighting, same trimmed hedges, same mailbox posts, painted the same dull green.

Even the sidewalks looked freshly scrubbed, like someone was afraid of leaving fingerprints on the place.

The HOA president came by that afternoon.

He introduced himself with a handshake that lingered too long, and a plastic container balanced in the crook of his arm.

Inside was a cake that had been frosted to look fancy, but my mom cut into it later, it

tasted bland and artificial, sweet in the wrong way, like flavoring instead of food, the

kind of thing that leaves your mouth dry afterward. He also handed my parents

a packet of papers and stood on the porch while they skimmed through it. I remember most of it being

boring. Rules about lawns, trash bins, noise complaints, outdoor decorations, how long cars could be

parked on the street, normal HOA stuff.

I was personally more interested in the ants crawling near the steps.

Then my dad stopped flipping pages.

I remember him rereading one line silently.

His eyebrows pulled together.

When I asked what it was, the HOA president laughed a little too fast and said it was just

an old neighborhood joke, nothing serious.

My mom took the papers away.

Later that night, I snuck the packet off the kitchen counter and read the part I'd seen my dad pause on.

It was printed in the same font as everything else, same size, same spacing, no bold letters or warnings.

Don't let the midnight salesman in.

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