The Tramp's Story, Part VIII: Evil is Easy

Con’t from previous post…

So I sent the forms in.

I called Maria first and told her I was going to send them in like she asked because Henry said it was okay, but that I couldn’t help but notice the name on the letter in the package wasn’t hers. She wheezed her answer, just like she always did.

“yeah things get shuffled around a lot but--"

“I understand,” I interrupted. Her simpering voice was really grating on my nerves. “I’m just wondering if the fax number it gives for her will also work for you.”

For those of you out there growing increasingly concerned: I thank you. But these forms I was faxing out into the nominal void were not deeds to my soul or anything. They were just – well, one of them I’ve forgotten what it was. Borrower’s Certification and Blood Oath or some such fucking thing. I don’t know, I didn’t read it. But I do still have it in an envelope around here, somewhere. I’m pretty sure I do, at least. I'm in bed, though, and it's cold. So you're nuts if you think I'm getting out and looking for it now.

Anyway, the other one I definitely remember. I don't know what it was called, of course, but it wanted me to check a box per my employment: was I a W-2 employee, it wanted to know (i.e., for you foreigners out there: was I employed by an actual company getting actual paychecks with actual taxes taken out of them. As if.) or was I self-employed.

Honestly, I don’t remember which box I checked. This is always a tricky question for me. I work for My Lady, of course, so I don’t consider me self-employed -- but the IRS does. My Lady gives me a 1099 form instead of a W-2, and that's all they care about. Because self-employed people, you see, have to pay taxes at twice the rate of W-2 people, to make up for what they’re not getting from your employer.

Oh, it’s totally fair. Not so much for me, I mean, because I make $17,000 a year so I can totally afford an extra grand. But let’s say for, oh, I don't know -- a painter. A regular-employed person puts in their eight hours (or more; I do recognize that oftentimes it’s more) and collects a check with roughly 1/3 missing – some of which, if he’s planned it wisely, will come back to him as a refund in April. A painter, on the other hand, spends half his time unpaid, driving around and pricing jobs he will not get, or picking up material for those he does. Plus he has to spend evening hours doing his own billing and accounting. Or his wife does. He can’t possibly charge enough per hour for the time he’s actually at work to make up for the time he’s not – people already think $25/hour is too much to pay for labor that they don’t believe takes any skill. (It would work out to $52K a year, before taxes, if he worked 40 hours every week -- with no sick time, health benefits, or paid vacation. Which is about what a secretary makes around these parts with all of those. But never mind.) And for all of this he gets the privilege of paying half again as much in taxes, not a cent of which does he have any hope of getting back.

I know, I know, I said “twice the rate” above and then “half again as much” right there. That’s because I don’t remember what it is, exactly. Johnny hasn’t had work in so long, we haven’t even had to file for the past few years, and if I look it up right now I will get agida.

Anyway. This form was surely asking how I file, and since I didn't in the years they specified, I didn't see how it mattered what I said. I considered checking yes, I am a W-2 employee, because it seemed it would be easier, and because -- since this was a non-income thingy-dingy -- I assumed they weren't checking, anyway. But, honestly, I don't remember if that's what I did or not. I could find out. It's in an envelope around here somewhere, swear to god.

Whatever box I checked, I sent it. Maria gave me a new number, I faxed the forms from Gary Drug, and when I called to confirm that they’d arrived, I found Maria working up some actual inflection! Was she warming up to me? Or was this a Pavlovian response in direct proportion to the tangibility of my account? Either way, it didn’t matter. A stalk of celery makes a more stimulating conversationalist than a limp carrot, any day. And what she said to me in her crunchy new voice was:

“What fax number did you send them to?”

Oh, jeez.

“Um? The number you gave me? This morning? When we spoke? The XXX one?”

Apparently? In an attempt to turn my own inflection up a notch to match Maria’s? I’d turned into an up-speaking Valley Girl?

“I’ll look around,” she said, “and call you. But next time use this other number, just in case.”

Um? Okay?

She called back in an hour to say she found the forms. “That person isn’t in today,” she said, “so your fax got kind of buried.”

You mean that person? Who’s fax number you gave me? Isn’t you?

Whatever.

The next step, Maria said, was to verify my employment, which she would do in the next day or so and call me. But what happened instead was that, an hour later, I got a panicked phone call from My Lady.

“Some woman from Bank of America just called! Asking all these questions! About whether or not you work for me!" She was quite worked up about it. I felt bad.

"But don’t worry," she went on.

"I didn't confirm anything.”

To be continued. Because I really don’t see any reason why you people should get to know how this turns out any faster than I did. This is MY soul I’m selling, after all...

The Tramp's Story, Part VII: Whena Yousa Thinking We Are in Trouble?

con't from previous post

Although I felt I ought to sort through this roll call somehow, my gut told me not to rely on the two people with five names between them to dish up the straight dope (I know: I astound even myself sometimes with these rare moments of clarity). But Bank of America is so large and ubiquitous that I didn’t even know which state to call for Directory Assistance.

In a flash of inspiration (moment of clarity #2), I logged on to the BoA website. I was looking for a general customer-service phone number, but all the listings were so specific that I got all turned around. Somehow, I found myself on a page that wanted me to "live-chat with a representative to confidentially discuss the possibility of a schmeschminance!" I’d already done that, of course, but it sounded close enough. I might even be connected to the same bank of employees as I was the last time, and this way I could get candid answers about Aroutyun/Henry V--/B-- and Maria/Sarah without the chance that either -- or any -- of them would overhear. And if they weren't quite rubbing elbows, well, whoever came on the chatline would at least have access to a directory of employees in the schmeschminance department. No?

Well, to put it frankly: I don't know. Because simply by having an application on file already, I started off on the wrong foot with Mr. Chat.

He called himself something nonspecifically exotic – Nevi or Udal or Jar Jar – and, perhaps because of this, seemed to infer a level of ethnocentricity in my questioning of Henry’s list of names. His response was: “Mr. V-- may find that certain people have difficulty pronouncing Aroutyun and so uses Henry to make it easier on them” (n other words: “shut up, you racist retard”). Refusing to be cowed, I countered with “What about his second last name? The Germanic-sounding one that starts with B, that may or may not have been clipped from a certain terrorist-hunting agent, played by someone who I still think of as a vampire, on a clock-watching television show I’ve never seen?”

Silly me. I thought he might look up Henry B— for me, confirm whether or not he actually exists. But no. Jar Jar told me to ask Henry. He gave me Henry V—’s phone number (which I already had, but which means he did look in a directory, just not for the right guy), and the number of his boss (because if we’re all changing names around here on a daily basis, our bosses are going to both be aware of it and confirm it to our customers). I ended the chat right then and there without saying goodbye, never bothering to ask about Maria’s alias at all.

Why is Jar Jar’s the only name in all of this I can’t remember? Prick.

So anyway, I did. I called Henry and asked if he could catch the cloud and pin it down. He said well, yes. Since it can sometimes take six months between the package and the phone call, see, accounts do tend to get shifted around. It’s not unusual for the name on the letter not to match up with the person who eventually makes contact. That's why he originally told me not to mail the forms. You see?

I bought it. Doesn’t seem like a sound business strategy to me, but then again, neither does giving a $189,000 loan to someone making $17,000 a year, and I’m still hoping for that to happen, aren’t I? So what the hell. Until I actually put pen to paper, after all, I'm still no worse off than I was before I made that fateful first contact. So I don't see any harm, for now, in letting this particular charade keep playing out.

As far as his new last name went, Henry was baffled. I had to pull the papers out and tell him exactly where to find it on the page. “Very, very tiny type,” I said, “up in the extreme left-hand corner. ‘Prepared,’ it clearly says, ‘by Henry B—.’”

Henry laughed. Laughed!

“You are very meticulous about reading your paperwork,” he said. “That is just the name of the person who printed and collated the physical pages. He is not an account representative, he's just a clerk. He apparently has the same name as I do, yes, but it is purely a coincidence.”

“Really?" I said, a bit relieved despite my surviving skepticism. "How odd. Because, I mean, it’s not as though 'Henry' is the most common name in the English language.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed. “That’s why I chose it.”

I am so totally not meticulous about reading my paperwork. At all. I think that much, at least, should be obvious to everyone (if not Henry) by now.

But I don’t see any harm in letting that particular charade keep playing out.


to be (say it with me) continued!

The Tramp's Story, Part VI: the people the people the people the people...

...con't from previous post...

It must have been a bad connection or something. The voice on the answering machine was so wee and small, it was like Horton Hears a Who (the book, I mean; I didn't even know there'd been a movie till I googled it. I am so sick of Jim Carrey screwing up classic literature, man). The only reason I didn't just delete it was that I managed to catch the words “Bank of America,” and I had to listen two more times before I caught her name: 

Maria. 
I've just met a—

No, I can’t say I heard the swelling of the orchestra quite yet. Even when I called her back, I could barely hear Maria's freaking voice.

Maria... 
I can’t hear a girl named Maria...

Yeah, that's more like it.

Seriously, she had a voice like a weak handshake. No force or inflection, no enthusiasm or punctuation. She just exhaled, almost simpered, only barely repositioning her lips. (I wouldn’t swear to that last bit, either, except I’m pretty sure you can’t say “Bank of America” without moving your lips at least a little bit. I can’t, anyway. You try it.)

“hello ms ellia," Maria said, "my name is maria k— I will be handling your [schm]e[scmh]inance and I was just wondering if you had any questions”

No. My best friend Henry was pretty clear about everything – oh, wait.

“Henry told me to verify my new loan number with anyone who called. Do you have it?”

She did.

Well, all right then.

Um…

Nope. Still no questions.

“okay well my last name is spelled xxxx and my email address is yyyy and my phone number is zzzz and you can call me anytime if you think of any”

Okay, but I really won’t. Henry told me to just sit tight and wait for somebody to call, so that’s exactly what I plan to do.

“have you received the package”

I have, but I haven’t opened it, because Henry told me not to send the forms.

“oh I do need you to send the forms”

What? No. No, no. I need to speak to Henry V—.

“do you want me to give you his phone number”

No. No, no. I have it.

“okay well call him and then call me back if you have any questions”

I’m not saying she wasn’t nice. She was very nice, and trying to be helpful. In a disturbing and uninflected sort of way.

“Henry?" I said. "I’ve got this Maria K— lady on the phone telling me I have to send the forms, but you told me I didn’t have to send the forms!”

“I told you not to send the forms until somebody called…”

“Right!”

“Right...”

“So...?”

“So now somebody did…”

“Yes, but – oh. Oh!” Der! This is the call I'm waiting for! “But you said it wouldn’t come for sixty days!”

“That’s the average. I actually have some people who’ve been waiting for six months. Yours is happening very fast. That’s good. So yes, you should definitely send in the forms she needs.”

I hung up and tore open the package, only to discover three mildly disturbing things:

1. The account rep who signed the cover letter was most decidedly not Maria X.

2. The person who prepared the package went by the name of Henry B—. Which is just weird. I mean, I forgave Henry his pair of first names, why'd he have to go and get a spare last one as well?

3. It said if I didn't get the forms back to them in twelve days the whole thing would fall apart, but I had no idea what day the FedEx box arrived. I suppose I’d better fax them to be sure – but which of these three (or four) people am I supposed to fax them over to?

Well, hell, you didn’t think I was going to put the brakes on this process just because everyone I speak with seems to be under witness protection? Come on, people! Let me remind you:

4.375%!

Although, now that I see it written out like that in bold italics...

Doesn’t it look like a bunch of cartoon swears?

Somebody told me once, a loooong time ago, that she got the sense just about anything could be turned into a good story in my hands. It was a very nice thing to say, and because of it -- because of her -- I’ve stuck with this little hobby through incomeless-years of shouting my barbaric yawp into the void. And, although god only knows why, she has stuck around with me as well. If she even remembers saying it anymore, however, I bet she’s regretting having thrown that particular gantlet down before me now. 8000 words (and counting) on schmeschminancing a schmortgage. Yeesh. 

All of which is a roundabout way of saying...

To be continued. Yet again.

The Tramp's Story, Part V: Everything is Fine. Period.

Con’t

I panicked that night and sent Henry an email telling him about the bonuses I usually get from My Lady. I could have called, but it was a Friday, and I didn’t want to let my neuroses snowball for two days. Also, it was like 3:00 a.m. I did this when I got the first mortgage, too, for a completely different reason. Money talk just makes me tense, okay? I plain old didn’t see how they could possibly give me the loan he described based on what I said I made. Not that the couple-thousand-dollar adjustment up to what I really make would matter, but like I said: this time I wanted to tell the truth.

I mean, sure, I lied a little – about how it works and why it happens – but that’s just because the truth is too personal and complicated to explain. So I told Henry it was a “Christmas bonus” and left it at that. That’s not a lie so much as a sparing him of the gory details. He should thank me. And, really, he should not give me the loan.

He wrote back first thing Saturday morning, which surprised me, and here’s the sum total of what he said:

everything is fine

Well, the italics are mine, but the rest of it is his, verbatim. No Dear Erin, no capital letter, no period, no any more sentences at all, and no Love, Henry. I realize that Love might have been a bit too much to expect from him so soon, but he could have at least slipped a capital-E on it and said my name. Plus, I mean, call me superstitious if you want to, but a missed period so early in the relationship is not what this girl would call an auspicious sign. You know?

Johnny kept up a steady stream of soothing chatter in an attempt to talk me off the ledge. The worst that he could happen, he kept repeating, was that we’d be back where we thought we were stuck anyway. We didn’t ask for this twist of fate, we just kind of stumbled on it, and so we shouldn’t fret that it might fall apart. It’s not like last time, where we stood to lose our $12,000 deposit if the loan fell through. This time we’ve got nothing to lose. We already own the house (for what it’s worth), we already live here (damnit), and if we wake up Monday to find ourselves exactly where we were on Thursday after all, so be it. There are plenty of people in the world who would kill for that to be the case.

I tell you, man. That Johnny. What a pain in the ass.

He’s right, though, so I tried to hold my head. And the FedEx package did arrive a few days later. I don’t remember when, exactly, because – since Henry had instructed me not to mail the forms until I got that call in sixty days – I did not so much as tear it open. I just tossed it in my office, where it commenced to being in the way no matter where I put it, as if determined to fall behind a trunk and or something, thereby ensuring I’d be unable to find it come December.

But then just a few days later I came home to a message on the answering machine—

Actually, hold up. What happened first was that I got a call on my cell phone from an 866 number, which pretty well always means automatic-dialed junk. I answered it, but I didn’t say anything (which is what I always do), and when the delayed-human voice came on the line hello-hello-ing, I hung up. Later, when I was writing down the number from the answering machine, I realized: that person I hung up on was That Person from the bank.

Whoops!

It’s possible I’ve decided to drag this story on for as long as it took to go down in real time. Because finances and phone calls are such supreme suspenseful fun. Or maybe I’m just trying not to jinx it because it’s still not over. There might still be every chance that I’ll get sick of it and gallop right up to The End, or every other chance the whole thing will fall through. Also, there might be sex and drugs and leprechauns and intrigue! You never know, is what I’m saying. So stay tuned…

Con’t…

The Tramp's Story, Part IV: Share the Wine

con't from previous post...

“Okay,” Henry went on (yes, yes, we’re three days in and still on that preliminary phone call). “Here’s what you can expect to happen. You’re going to get a FedEx package sometime in the next ten days with the workup of the loan – if it doesn’t arrive by the 12^th, you call me. There will be a few forms in there it’ll tell you to sign and send back – don’t send them. Wait until you hear from somebody. It has generally been taking 60 days.

“Your new loan number will be ######. If anybody contacts you to discuss this process, ask them to verify that number. If they don’t have it, hang up on them right away and call me. And remember, you do not need an appraisal. Sometimes people get confused. If someone calls to schedule an appraisal, tell them you refuse to do it, and—

“I know! Call you?”

“Yes,” Henry chuckled his deep, island chuckle, “you call me. Call me for anything, at any time, always. Now, sometime around the first of December you’ll get a phone call from the person handling your loan. At that point – would you like to put your husband’s name on the deed?”

“Oh! Yes!” He’s not on it yet for lots of reasons, not least because we weren’t yet married at the time. Now that we are, though, we’ve been meaning to do this for a while. It will be a whole lot easier on him when I finally freak out and throw myself under a bus

“All right,” sweet, soothing Henry said. “When that person calls you in December [he might not have said ‘that person.’ He might have said a job title or even a name. But I was having a hard enough time writing down things like ‘do NOT mail forms’ and ‘Johnny’s name on title’ to think about who ‘that person’ might be], you tell them you want to do that, and they can set it up. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need anything at all, you have my number and email address. I’m in Orange County – California – so we’re three hours behind you.”

“Orange County, huh? Actually, that reminds me: I do have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Why was your very first question what county Weymouth’s in?”

What can I say? I’m all about the details.

“Oh, that was just to make sure you were really you, and not somebody trying to get a [sch]mortgage in your name.”

Ah. I see. It’s a good thing I happened to guess it, then. Because it’s not like that information’s publicly available or anything.

As soon as I hung up I told Johnny what happened, then proceeded to call everyone I know. Well, not everyone – I don’t want all of you people I know out there start to feeling bad you didn’t get a phone call. What I meant to say is that I called my dad and Dr. One Friend. But the responses I got from the two of them pretty well covered it.

Dad said “That’s great! But is it too good to be true?” And Dr. One Friend said “That’s great! But – what exactly does ‘[schm]e[schm]inance’ mean?”

Ha! Right?

Took me three days to come up with an explanation.

Really, really to be really, really continued…

The Tramp's Story, Part III: A Rose is a Rose is a What Now?

con't from previous post

Just when I was deciding whether this Henry person might be my new best friend, he said “Are you sure you don’t want to discuss this with your husband or anything?"

There was a time I would have bristled at that question. When I would have heard it as “Sweetheart, you are obviously not qualified to make this decision because you are a girl.”  But I'm much older now. I've learned from more than my share of life's mistakes. I've realized that if I squeal and let the Big Strong Man kill the Little Hairy Spider (or vice versa), that doesn't mean he won't still hear me roar. I also know the sorry truth is that I am not qualified to make this decision – which isn't due to my X chromosomes, as far as I know, but to some other wonky aspect of my DNA.

I am an idiot. Financially, at least. I go through life like a tourist: holding out fistfuls of pretty-colored currency and trusting random strangers to take their pick. That's how I wound up with my first schmortgage, more or less, and just look at the bollix that turned out to be. This time, though, I was determined to do it right. So I slapped a muzzle on my inner Steinem and assured her Henry just meant that was this was not something to be taken lightly. He just meant that, since there did happen to be another member of my household, the two of us might want to take some time and hash it out.

“Nah.”

Well, Johnny would likely have opinions. That could only serve to complicate things, after all.

“All right, then, we’ll get you started. 4.375%, fixed for 30, no appraisal, no income verification, no penalty for early payment – in case you win the lottery, which I sincerely hope you do. Plus you’ll get to skip a payment when it’s finalized, so you and your husband can take a nice vacation." We could. Or we could heat our house! "And it looks right now as if you'll be getting $1600 back from the balance on your escrow account.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second...

“Why doesn’t this email I just got from you say ‘Henry’ on it?”

“Oh, does it still say ‘Aroutyun’?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

You bet your ‘Hm,’ there, Henry! Or, should I say, Aroutyun? Now I’m confused. The fast-talking Countrywide I dealt with last time at least let me call him “Kevin McGoff” the whole time he was shoving my first schmortgage up my ass. Your accent is lovely, Henroutyun, and while I certainly understand an immigrant taking a name that’s easier on the natives, don't you think you should pick one and stick with it? This is two-names stuff comes across a little shady.

Then again, my own grandfather abandoned the name on his Albanian birth certificate at age 14, when Dmitri became Mitchell at Ellis Island, and Dimi became Jimmy to his friends. So what the hell right do I have to judge?

I still didn’t quite grok why the $1600 escrow balance would be mine to keep, though. Don't I still have to pay insurance and property tax and stuff? Ah, well. For now I could afford to take Henroutyun’s word for that part, because apparently I’d have plenty of time to suss it out...

“It will probably take about 90 days to be final, so—”

“Which payment do I skip? November?”

“No! No, you’ll skip one when it’s all finished and closed. In the meantime, you must not even be late with a single payment, or the whole thing will fall apart. The only reason I can give this to you in the first place is because you don’t have any payments late so far. You’re very lucky.”

“Well..." I said. I don’t know how much ‘luck’ had to do with that, Henroutyun.

“Not lucky! I know! Very responsible! What I mean is, you’re very lucky with the timing, with this rate. Even if you do live there for thirty years, I promise you will never refinance this house again. You will never get a better deal than this.”

“I can imagine. But then, the only reason I let myself be fast-talked into an adjustable in the first place was that I thought we’d never see 5% again.” That, and I really did think we’d be out of here by now.

“If we did adjustable today,” said Henroutyun, “I could give you 3%.”

“Really!?”

“But you don’t want to do that!”

“No, no. I don’t. I was just saying: Really!?”

“Even if you did want to, I wouldn’t do it. I was just making small talk while I have a quick look through your file.”

God bless you, sir. Just for that, I’ll call you Henry again from now on.

So we went through some small details – my SS#, marital status, clearing up the fact that I do, in fact, live in the house now, and they can disregard the address and telephone number of our old apartment -- stuff like that. He asked me how much I earned and I told him, honestly. Actually, I told him a lower number than the truth, because I left out the healthy bonus my Lady usually gives me at the end of every year (I figured that, even though I’ve never not gotten it, it’s still really more of a gift than salary and therefore not a guarantee, so I’d be both more polite and better off to not assume).

It didn’t phase him. A $189,000 schmortgage on a $20,000 salary didn’t phase him. And here you thought they weren’t doing that anymore.

Hey, though, you know what? Whatever. At least I am better off now than I was before, and isn't that the American dream? That is to say, I will be. If this schmeschminance actually comes through. And if it doesn't, or if I wind up plastered to the rolling-snowball anyway, I can still blame it on Kevin McGoff.

That bleedin' Countrywide.

Tune in next time for the exciting continuation. There’s a FedEx package! And forms!

The Tramp's Story, Part II: Oh, Henry!

The voice on the line was deep and accented – Caribbean, maybe, or Pacific Island – and the first thing it asked me was what county I was in.

“Country?” I asked, already getting annoyed. Couldn't they have headsed him up on at least that fairly major detail?

"No, Ma'am," the voice went on, calm as a tropical breeze. "County."

I put the beer down. What is this, a civics quiz?

I can never keep this answer straight. When I was growing up I lived in Worcester County, which was easy to remember because Worcester was the giant nearby city where I went to school. But now... Weymouth is twelve miles south of Boston, see, and therefore (obviously) Boston is twelve miles north -- but Boston's Suffolk County; and Weymouth's Norfolk. This makes no sense -- which really makes it quintessential Beantown logic, considering that East Boston is actually north and South Boston is actually east and the South End (which is not the same as South Boston by any stretch) is smack dab in the middle of the Hub -- but I still tend to get the county names confused. 

“Um... Norfolk?” I guessed.

“Okay. My name is Henry. What can I help you with today?”

So does that mean I guessed right? Is this how the process is going to work? Like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? You keep asking questions and as long as I keep getting them right I keep playing, until – ta da! – I'm all schmeschminanced? If so, could we maybe play it like Cash Cab instead, where you get easier questions, three wrong answers, and a chance to double your money at the end?

“Well, Henry,” I said. “I honestly don’t think you can help me with anything [despite my brush with civic success I was still feeling a little cocky with the hopelessness of it all], but the Nice Lady told me that it never hurts to ask.”

I explained everything to him -- in more grotesque detail than I'd given the Lady, but maybe a little less than I've given to you here. I'm really not a skillful liar, see -- the "undocumented" process nearly killed me last time -- so for this go 'round I determined to 'fess up to everything and let the schmortgage chips fall where they may. The worst that could happen (in fact, the most likely thing to happen) was that I’d hang up fifteen minutes later exactly where I’d been before I made the call. Unless -- they couldn’t take away my active schmortgage, could they? Shit!

Well, it was too late. I’d spilled it. And here is what ol' Henry had to say.

“It looks like you’ve been a good customer so far. Never had a late payment or anything. So, sure. I can take care of this for you. We’ll do a non-income based loan, with no appraisal of the property, fixed for 30 years at 4.75%.”

Four? Point seven five? You mean my interest rate – my payments – would go down? And I say "would" because you and I both know that there’s no way any of this is really going to happen, but anyway: Four point seven five?

“Oh, yes. Or I could give you 4.375%, also fixed for 30 – which would bring your monthly payments down another $40. But only if you think you’re going to be there for a while.”

Huh? I mean, what kind of idiot choice is that? Who cares how long we're going to be here? Even if it's just one more month, I would like (der) the one with lower payments, please!

“Hang on,” Henry said, “let me explain. The closing costs on the lower rate are $3,500 higher. But if you’re going to be there for – wait a minute, let me do the math... Thirty-five hundred divided by forty dollars a month is 87.5 ... divided by 12 months is... Okay, it’s worth it if you think you’re going to be there for at least seven years. Otherwise, $3,500 is a lot of money and you might want to think about it and call me back.”

Well, chop me off and call me stumpy, don’t that shit just beat all. A schmortgage guy, explaining things, and giving a girl time to think. Kee-rist, I’m getting all verklempt just thinking about it. But, um, oh:

“Closing costs? I forgot about them. We don’t have—”

“They’re added on top and rolled into the loan. It won’t cost you anything out of pocket no matter what you choose. But it’s still real money, so you ought to think about it anyway.”

Yeah, I probably ought to. But I shan't.

“Give me the lower one.”

I still had no delusions of financial grandeur -- I knew I wouldn't actually get it or anything -- but this was starting to be a pleasant conversation, so I thought I might as well try on the princess dress and prance around.

“The lower rate?” asked Henry. “Or the lower closing costs?”

Oh, Henry, listen to you. You're like an Antioch college freshman, doggedly asking a girl's permission every tiny step along the way. I’m telling you, your mama would be proud.

“The lower rate. Please.”

I don’t know if we’ll still be here in seven years or not. That's not the plan, but the plan was for us to be out of here in less than ten and look how well that worked out. What I do know is that at this point forty bucks is forty bucks, and it will come in handy every month no matter what bad-in-the-long-term plan it might have come from. If we are here for seven years it will be worth it; and if not, well, $3,500 was never going to save our asses, anyway. Besides: who knows? Maybe we’ll be such billionaires by then that a measly couple thou will feel like pocket change.

Hey, man, it could happen. I'd give it even odds with this schmeschminance, anyway.

To be continued… again… I swear to god…