In today’s episode of Yucking Someone’s Yum, I present to you the Little Free Library, a concept of literacy being available everywhere, versus the homeowner association, a concept of Karens living down the road thinking they can bully you into doing whatever they want so the neighborhood can look uniform and sterile.

For those who are unaware of Little Free Libraries, don’t feel bad. I wasn’t aware of them until a decade ago, when one of the local colleges had a group of students build some to go up in neighborhoods. These tiny libraries in boxes hold a few dozen books and go up around parks, chambers, people’s homes, etc., and you’re welcome to take a book—and hopefully put one or two in so that others may also enjoy the fun of stories.

Quite the concept, isn’t it? Libraries can only be open for so many hours a day or a week, many communities don’t have bookstores, and even if they do, your credit card can only cover so many book purchases. That’s what makes the Little Free Libraries so innovative and benevolent.

Lana Carter moved earlier this year from Colorado to Ohio. Lana told a news station in Cleveland that her previous neighborhood had at least eight Little Free Libraries, so she and her husband decided when they moved east to set one up in front of their home.

It quickly became a neighborhood sensation, with grandmas telling Lana they’re playing with their grandchildren, who want to go to “story time,” what they call the library. I find it a nice way to get to know your neighbors, something that should be encouraged.

Enter the Karens.

A few weeks after the box was installed, nasty letters and emails were delivered to Lana via some management firm for the homeowner association declaring the Little Free Library unauthorized “front porch storage” and demanding it be removed by the end of July.

I watched the television news story twice, and the library was positioned next to the sidewalk, not on Lana’s front porch, so it seems like the members of the homeowner association would benefit from a little more reading and education so they could learn the difference between a front porch and their back ends.

Getting back to the melodrama, the letter did provide Lana with the option of contesting the decision with a hearing so she could try and save the library. Sadly, homeowner association hearings tend to be kangaroo courts, and Lana lost, being told the library now has to be removed by the end of September, or she will face fines of $50 per week.

People complain when cities or towns implement rules that infringe on our freedom to live how we like. That’s bad enough. Then you have these pseudo-governmental homeowner associations that try to act like authorities within authorities, and they make these rules without considering how it’s going to impact their neighbors. It’s no wonder that so many people have such a negative viewpoint of government.

Lana has decided to give up the good fight and close the library. I find this sad, and I think there’s an alternative. She should sue the pants off the homeowner association and get a court of law to remind the Karens that this is America, and when you try to infringe on an American’s freedom, you should expect to receive a bloody nose for your tyranny.

After all, when you look at the history of homeowner associations in the United States, their early beginnings came about from racism and anti-Semitism. Of course, federal law prohibits that now, but it’s clear the associations still harbor to desire to wield power over those around them, and now their aim is toward the literate.

The really frustrating thing is that when some people buy property in certain areas, homeowner association membership comes with the property, which means you’re stuck under their rules. To me, that kind of twisted organization flies in the face of the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” our Founding Fathers sought when they inked the Declaration of Independence.

This is why, once I manage to find a way to buy my own home for me and my sweetheart, Todd, to live in, it will be a hundred miles away from any homeowner association. If I want to put a Little Free Library in my yard, it’s my home and my land, so any Karen can just stick it where the sun doesn’t shine if they don’t like it.

In fact, if I had the finances, I would put up a dozen Little Free Libraries, perhaps each with a different genre—one for romance, one for mystery, one for fantasy, etc. Maybe I could set up a rocking chair behind the libraries and ask a drag queen to do a story hour.

Take that, Karens.