Reflections of an (Ex) Landlord

It's been quite a few years since I was a landlord.  I don't miss it a bit.  All "hands on" landlords will have their share of tales to be told.  There was the time when I was faced with pursuing an eviction after a tenant failed to pay for several months and when the eviction hearing day came, the tenant called me up for ride to the eviction hearing.  And then there was the ex-Marine and his wife and kids who turned out to be my best tenants ever, despite their choice of pets - a couple of very large pythons... In fairness, they told me about these pets well in advance and after gathering their very favorable references, I proceeded despite my fair share of skepticism.  What can I say, they turned out to be honest hard working people, and I never, ever received a phone call complaining about a barking python keeping someone up all night or a python pooping in the neighbors yard...

A step down towards equality

It continues to be my contention that when it comes to oppression of the sexes, it's us men who are the ones who are oppressed.  So it was with a mixture of amusement and sadness when I learned of the announcement that women will be allowed in combat positions in the armed forces.  As expected, such an announcement brings all of the talking heads out of the woodwork with the usual banter about upper body strength and defecating in the foxhole.  I find this debate boorish as I have little doubt that women can cope with combat as well as men.  I don't think it takes too much upper body strength to pull a trigger and given my bad back, I think a wounded "comrade" would probably have a better chance of being pulled off the battlefield by a woman than by me.  As far as a woman watching me take a poo, well, I'd prefer that nobody watches me take a poo (they probably would too), but if bullets are flying I'm thinking it probably wouldn't matter too much whether the observer was a male or a female.