20061024

I finally understand you, Courter....sort of

I was in Chicago on a business trip earlier this summer and stopped in at The Arch to visit with Boc and Courter, Hetero Life Partners, since I hadn't seen them in a while. Courter was in freak out mode concerning some mythical process called "closing."

Apparently this ritual is the final step in the home buying process and is very involved. In short, a "closing" is a meeting with lots of people whose titles include the word Officer. Fortunately, in this case you don't go to jail right away only after you burn down your house when you're about to default on your loan.

These officers insist that you produce all sorts of documentation which is about as fun as it sounds. You've got to make yourself comfortable with the fact that all these strangers will see the dirty laundry listed on your bank statements, pay stubs, credit reports, criminal records and even those notes from Mrs. Alario's second grade class that you have stuffed in the back of your sock drawer. It helps if you focus on the fact that you won't have to move again for a long
while once this "closing" is closed.

To drive home the fact that you're officially stepping all the way into the grown-up zone, you've got to sign your name and/or initials at least 135 times according to an independent third party named Alfie. Finally, the Officers get you to sign over all of your High Life fund in the form of some fat checks. Many of these checks are to pre-pay expenses for the upcoming year. I can't believe that they don't trust you to pay your bills even though they now know how your
income history since you started receiving allowance for not locking your brothers in the basement any more.

Courter was too frazzled to articulate what was driving him up the wall. I only know about "closing" because I am preparing for my first one on Monday.

I'm a nervous wreck. My procrastination has hit an all time high, which is to say that I'm doing anything but packing or work or other sensible, productive activities like lining up home owner's insurance. Instead I do time sucking things like reading RSS feeds for four hours at a stretch and pace the apartment from the kitchen/office to the bathroom and back. Hey, did you know that Bolivia might make it on to the UN Security Council? Great. That government is about as stable as Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen.

This is coming from the guy who's likely to be rocking back-and-forth in the corner mumbling something about Judge Wapner and needing new drawers from K-Mart.

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