I gave her the same smile I give toddlers trying to buy beer. "We don't have an HOA account. Payment first, ma'am."
Her head snapped back like she'd been slapped by the concept of common sense. "Excuse me? I'm the president of Ridge View Meadows."
"That's nice," I replied. "But you still have to pay before I turn the pump on."
Tessa let out a snort so loud she disguised it as a sneeze. Beverly's jaw tightened. Then, like a switch flipping, she whipped out her phone and thrust it toward my face. "This," she announced, "is discrimination."
Mrs. Butler, a regular buying her morning scratch-offs, muttered, "Honey, the only thing he's discriminating against is stupidity."
But Beverly didn't hear a thing. She was already narrating a fake injustice for her camera, framing herself as the oppressed victim of a ruthless gas station dictator. Then came the moment when she stepped outside, dialed 911, and declared in her best dramatic voice that she was being denied essential services by a hostile non-HOA business.
I should have known better than to think the situation would stop there. Beverly never did anything halfway.
"Think she's done?" I asked.
Tessa shook her head. "Oh no, Mark. This is just her warm-up lap."
15 minutes later, just as I finished cleaning the slushy machine, a second SUV rolled in—this one covered in American flags, HOA bumper stickers, and handwritten posters taped to the doors: Justice for HOA residents, Stop community abuse, and my personal favorite, Free gas is a right.
Out stepped three women wearing matching T-shirts that read Ridge View Meadows Community Standards Committee. Each held a protest sign in one hand and a phone recording in the other.
Tessa nearly dropped the coffee pot. "Oh my god," she breathed.
I sighed. "We're being protested, aren't we?"
"Congratulations," she said, patting my shoulder. "You angered the HOA queen. Now she's assembled her court."
Beverly stormed back inside, armed with a clipboard, her expression triumphant as if she'd personally drafted a Declaration of Independence. "I am filing an official HOA complaint," she announced, slamming the clipboard onto the counter so hard the register beeped.
"Against who?" I asked.
"You," she snapped. "For denying service to HOA residents, for hostility, for discrimination based on community membership."