When I bought my house, I was naïvely glad that it was part of a homeowners' association.  "They'll mow the lawn and take care of a bunch of other stuff I don't want to do," I thought.  It turns out that what they actually do is harass you because your weeds are taller than a certain number of inches and then when you complan about something, tell you that it isn't a real problem.  When they did finally start mowing lawns, they did such a bad job of it that I told them to skip mine.

So right now I have some damage to my roof.  Of course I need to replace it, but am I going to replace it in the right color?  If that sounds like a reasonable question to you, then you are cut out to be a board member in your HOA.

For this contest, please write comics about this ridiculous situation.  Provide the reason why my application to have my own roof repaired is going to be rejected; settle once and for all the question of exactly how tall is too tall for a backyard shed; solve the Solomonesque quandary of what makes a vehicle too "commercial" to be parked in a respectable parking lot.

The winner of this contest will run CC713.  I will decide on that winner in, I hope, rather less than 30 days, which is the length of time the "architectural committee" has to decide whether I will be allowed to fix my roof.

/comics/JoeBlough/606955/

Hopefully we'll have our donor status back before judgement day!

/comics/edoggydog/606967/

/comics/RandomComicLayoutGuy/606969/

/comics/four_legged_tripod/607033/

I'll give you all the weekend and then judge on Monday.  Or thereabouts.

/comics/evil_d/607137/

/comics/evil_d/607138/

It's time for me to abuse my petty authority and choose a winner for this contest.

JoeBlough is disqualified for being too new.  What, you think we let just anyone waltz in here and join a contest?

edoggydog is disqualified for making it personal.

RandomComicLayoutGuy is the runner-up.  I felt like he really understood the mindset of an HOA board member.  In fact, he probably is an HOA board member.  On second thought, he's disqualified.

four_legged_tripod is the winner, because jokes about windowless white vans are always funny.  They're like cruise control for comedy, which is ironic because the vans themselves probably don't have cruise control.

/comics/four_legged_tripod/607033/

Much like four_legged_tripod's, my story has a happy ending: I have received permission to repair my roof.  Well, that's more of a "happy middle".  We'll see what happens when the contractors get here.

Well, thank you sir.  I put my check for the liability insurance in the mail and will submit plans to build the next CC soon.