Up on the wire

Step by step this house thing is winding down. At this point no request can phase me, no task can deter me. As I type this I am on hold with the mortgage company while some crisis or another is going on. Whatever. Figure it out. Put the bit in my teeth and yank. I’m ready. They pummeled my startle reflex to smithereens weeks ago. Now when the bombs fall I notice it less than the gentle flutter of a hummingbird’s wings.

Few of you realize the magnitude of this accomplishment. As a right-brained thinker the performance of this staggering series of tedious and byzantine tasks has challenged me beyond my previously known limits. It is like writing a novel with my right hand (I’m a lefty, like the president.) Once, at a particularly crippling point of the process, the realtor was unfolding page after page of nonsense-every word out of her mouth began to sound like “hot german potato salad” and as she talked at an earnest rate of 740 words per minute I pictured myself reaching over the table and taking the papers from her hand, cramming them into my mouth and chewing them slowly like a cow in the field. What would she think of that? I wondered.

Instead I just signed them and smiled pleasantly- a feat as impressive as landing a plane in the Hudson, or walking on a tightrope between the Twin Towers, or saving a child from a burning car- yet the only applause was my own.

Bike? Rode it yesterday out at Munson. It ain’t going anywhere.

Juancho

11 Responses to Up on the wire

  1. That’s a great image- you thinking about chewing the papers like a cow and wondering what the realtor would think if you did it. Would she say anything? Would she grab it out of your mouth like it’s happened before and say “no, no” to you? Or, would she just go get more papers and start over, keeping them far away from your left hand to grab and stuff in your mouth again?

  2. The sad thing is, Realtors are their own breed. I’m not sure it even would have phased her. With the exception of Mingo, of course, but then again, he’s his own breed, also.

  3. I always have inappropriate urges like that. I can’t go to church because I’m afraid I’d stand up in the middle of the sermon and scream, “Shut the F*CK up!” (Did you notice I cleaned it up for your family-oriented blog? You’re welcome.)

  4. I have never read a better assessment of the whole mortgage process. I should have eaten the papers the last time around as it would have saved me from the biggest mistake I have ever made. The mortgage wouldn’t have been so bad if there hadn’t been a bogus appraisal backing it up and divorce attorney’s hovering in the wings.

    It sucks being the canary to the mortgage crisis; for you I’m sure it will be a different experience. It’s a whole new world out there.