It's not about the house.

Friday, October 30, 2009

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 12th, 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…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh dear god, lucky you are far away for now, or I may be tempted to give you some car park counselling.

Now, finish the story, you naughty thing!

Unknown said...

I really expect you to continue for at least another three episodes. Then, rewrite it with added dialogue from Johnny. The tension is tense.

On the basis that the entire economy was shot to ribbons by George Dubious Bush, you should be able to throw in some caustic satire (perhaps alluding to "Ted Kennedy would never have done such a heinous thing") and still keep the punters (that is me) interested.

Finish. Please Finish. Write all three episodic outbursts while in the bath with a chainsaw if you must.