For Real This Time?

Thevictorians continue to chase the carrot at the end of the stick. That carrot being the completed sale of Bargain House. Right now we feel like three Charlie Browns, running to kick that football held by The Buyer, Lucy.

Let's see... when we last discussed Bargain House, our Realtor Guy had issued an ultimatum to The Buyer's Realtor. It was Friday evening, April 17. If we didn't have a closing date and time by Friday, April 24, the deal was off.

After Hick had gone to bed, he got a text from Realtor Guy saying that The Buyer's Realtor thought they would be ready on Monday or Tuesday. But he was willing to give them until Thursday. Well. That raised more questions. Ready to actually close? Or ready to give us an appointment date and time for closing? How were they going to get a closing date set on Monday, with financial institutions closed over the weekend? And you can't just call them on Monday, and say, "We want a closing appointment for today."

It's like we keep getting updates with no real information. That's not our Realtor Guy's fault. He can only tell us what THEY tell him. Monday came and went, with no further communication. Just as we expected. Until Hick checked his phone at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, and saw a text from our Realtor Guy at 9:30 Monday night.

"Sorry for the late text. I just talked to The Buyer's Realtor a couple hours ago. He said he thinks the financial institution will be ready to close tomorrow [Tuesday]. The Buyer should be able to sign then, too. I'll have to talk to [redacted] at the title company to get a time."

"Wait! So that means TODAY? We're closing TODAY? But we don't have a time yet? How can that be? And what does it mean about the buyer? There's no closing until The Buyer actually BUYS the house! So it does no good if we show up to sign and he doesn't!"

"I don't know, Val. I'm just reading what he sent me."

"So I'm supposed to get ready and sit around and wait to see if we get a time? Then you'll have to come get me, and we go pick up The Pony? That seems like really short notice. If you take the Acadia today, I can pick up The Pony and meet you in town so you don't have to come all the way out here."

"Like I said, I don't know. Maybe it won't be today. Maybe The Buyer works, and will have to get a time when he can get there. I'm going to be mowing yards in town. I'll let you know if I hear anything."

I called The Pony at 8:00, to be ready and on-call in case we had to get to the closing. "Dad thinks he probably won't hear anything until after 9:00, and that he has things to do until 10:00. But it COULD be any time after that. So I guess just be prepared."

I took my meds early. Took a shower early. Then settled down to the business of actively waiting. At 10:43, I got a text from Hick saying we would close on Wednesday morning.

We'll see...

Of course this comes after I paid the three utility bills, and the day after Hick took the insurance payment for the next six months. I would have paid them a couple weeks  earlier if I knew The Universe would use that inconvenience to kick this closing into action.

Hick said he's NOT mowing the yard at Bargain House. The Buyer can do that himself!

Who You Gonna Call? Hick Fixer.

Hick seems to be on-call 24/7/365. It's not part of his just-over-$300 a month "job" with the senior apartments. The other guy was never on call like that. He basically just collected the rent every month, for the four apartments that were occupied at the time. For the same money Hick started at, and worked the first year. Nobody would have thought to call HIM for the most recent problem.

"My friend who runs the kitchen called and said there was water dripping from the ceiling. I went by, and found out it was a water heater leaking up in one of the apartments. So we had to get a new water heater. I took out the ceiling tiles in the kitchen. Now I have to get new ones and put them up. 

I told my friend, 'Maybe I should just leave it like it is. Because of that guy with the city, who complained that I shouldn't be doing any work on this building, because I'm not a licensed contractor.' She said, 'Now let's not be too strict about this. Maybe you should go ahead and fix it, and see if he complains. Then you can say you are sorry.' I told her, 'I can say that since it was OUR water heater that caused the problem for HIS kitchen, I thought I was the one responsible for fixing it.' She said that sounded like a good plan."

"You'll get paid for doing all that work, right? Other than just your salary?"

"Oh, yeah. I'll get my contractor's fee."

Heh, heh. Even though he's not a licensed contractor. Hick is paid by the board of the nonprofit organization running the apartments, not by the city, which technically owns the building, but leases it to the nonprofit for a dollar.

Procuring Drugs Has Become More Difficult

I used my pharmacy's automated system to call in two prescription refills on Friday morning. It was before 8:00. Both of them had refills remaining, so I believed the message that told me they would be ready after 11:00. I get a text once they are done and ready for pickup. When I hadn't received that text by 2:00, I called the pharmacy. 

"Just checking to see if my prescriptions are ready."

"Let me see... No. We are running behind. Our automatic pill-counting machine is down, so it's taking us extra time. I can have your prescriptions ready in about an hour."

"Yes. That will be fine. It will take me that long before I'm in town. Thank you."

In fact, it was only a speedy 50 minutes before I got the text. I was able to pick up my drugs with no problem at their drive-thru window.

Meanwhile, Hick was having his own drug-seeking issue. He has glaucoma, and had just been to the eye doctor on Wednesday for a regular appointment. Hick came home on Friday evening, and immediately thrust his phone into my face.

"I can't get my eye drops at my pharmacy unless I go to this link and update my payment information."

"That sounds sketchy. I don't know about that..."

"Here. Look at it."

"Is that even their website? Maybe it's a scam."

"The gal in the pharmacy sent it to me. I told her no, I'll just pay for it here when it comes in. She said they cain't do that. I'd have to drive to the city to pick it up if I wanted to pay for it in person. I have to go to this link and update it. They they'll send my eye drops here to my pharmacy."

"That's crazy! Let me see what it looks like. Well. It says it's your pharmacy in the URL. The page looks official. It wants your birthdate. That seems sketchy! I guess I'll put it in. Since you got this from the gal at your pharmacy. Okay. Now it wants a type of payment. I guess we'll use the debit card. Read me your numbers..."

I had all the info entered. Then when I hit the DONE button, the screen stalled.

"Here. Take your phone outside, and maybe it will go."

Hick wandered around on the back porch. Then went to the front porch. Then came back in.

"It got this message at the top, in red."

SOMETHING WENT WRONG. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.

"When do you need this medicine?"

"It's no hurry. Just by Monday."

"Well, since they have to SEND IT FROM THE CITY, I guess we'll have to try this again tomorrow or Sunday. So the info will be in Monday, for them to send your medicine down here."

We tried on Saturday morning before 6:00, and the info went through. Of course we had to enter it all again.

These newfangled ways are almost harder than when an old granny-lady foraged in the woods for roots and herbs to grind with a mortar and pestle.

Walking Papers Might Be in Order

Hick talked to Realtor Guy on the phone Friday. Realtor Guy still had no new information. He said he had sent an email to The Buyer's Realtor earlier in the day, and was supposed to hear something by that evening. I don't know if he actually did, or not.

Hick had called to tell Realtor Guy that the work on the Bargain House windows was completely finished. It cost us another $200, because one of the windows was a different size, and needed other parts than the ones that worked for the other two windows. Hick said he will also get a bill for the second "house call" for the repairs. But that the windows are done.

Realtor Guy sent Hick a message later, thanking him for being patient, and acting in a professional manner to complete his part of the agreement for the contract on Bargain House. He also said that he had told The Buyer's Realtor that he expects a closing date and time by the end of the day Friday, April 25. If there is no closing date scheduled by then, 

WE ARE WALKING! The deal is off!

Thevictorian triumvirate agrees with this tactic. Bargain House has been tied up now, waiting on a closing date, since March 8. It needs to go back on the market if The Buyer and his so-called realtor can't get it together. As The Pony says, the families with school-age kids who are looking to buy a house will be ready to view properties and get a deal done over the next few months. 

We're not here to hold a house in lay-a-way for a wishy-washy buyer and incompetent realtor.

Hick Gets a Diagnosis Off His Chest

After 18 days of waiting to find out what his nurse practitioner saw in his chest x-ray, Hick finally got an answer. It came from a cardiologist on Thursday. 

"The pressure on my spine is from arthritis. She says I have some blockage in some coronary arteries. That it's not unusual for a man my age, with diabetes and high blood pressure. But she doesn't want to okay me for the surgery until I have a stress test and some other test. She doesn't think there will be time to have that done by next Friday's surgery date. So I'll tell my NP's office to have the surgery re-scheduled."

Which they did, and Hick's surgery will now be in August. He doesn't have a date yet for the stress test or whatever else. This is Hick's rendition from his conversation with the cardiologist. I'm hoping it's fairly accurate. Hick is sometimes an unreliable narrator!

Turns out the MRI that Hick has been harping about, trying so hard to get scheduled, was actually a CT Scan all along! You'd think he might have let that slip at least once, in the 18 days he's been talking about it. But no. He called me after the cardiologist appointment, referring to a CT Scan, and I had to ask if he'd had some other test. Nope.

Anyhoo... we don't feel too concerned about the cardiologist's findings. We'll wait (who knows how long!) to see what the stress test reveals.

House Hold Update

We are still waiting for a closing date for the sale of Bargain House! It seems like this has taken forever. The original closing date was April 6, which was one month after we signed the contract (March 8), which was 16 days after the listing went up.

WHY is this sale still on hold? Hick communicates regularly with our Realtor Guy. Who only knows what The Buyer's realtor tells him. 

At the risk of being a pest, Hick sent a text on Tuesday night, asking Realtor Guy if the house is sold or not. Should we open up the listing? In case this sale doesn't go through?

Realtor Guy replied on Wednesday morning that he was expecting a reply from The Buyer's Realtor later that day. But that if the deal continues to stall with no explanation, we might want to back out of it.

Here's the latest, from Wednesday (April 15) afternoon. Realtor Guy sent Hick a copy/paste of the message he got from The Buyer's Realtor. It went a little something like this:

"The Buyer still wants the house. His financial institution has approved his loan for the house. We are waiting on HUD to approve the contract."

Well. That certainly clears it up, doesn't it? What in the Not-Heaven does that mean??? Will HUD have to send an inspector or an appraiser? Or just look over the contract? It's a federal entity, you know. So nobody can guess how long this process might take.

Meanwhile, it seems like we've sold Bargain House. Right?

Val Should Have Tossed Some Smelling Salts into Her Cart

I made an unscheduled trip to Country Mart on Tuesday. It couldn't wait until Errand Day on Thursday, because I needed SLAW. Hick was grilling some sausage patties (or as I call them: deconstructed bratwursts) that evening, and slaw goes great with them. Besides, I could get my scratchers out of the two machines at the front of the store, rather than my daily trip to the Gas Station Chicken Store.

First I went down the soda aisle, and saw that Hick's Diet Mountain Dew was still on sale 2 for $9.00 on the six-pack bottles. I put two on the side of my cart and continued down and across the back aisle. The cookies are there, and Hick has bemoaned a lack of treats since he finished the Easter cheesecake, and took his bag of shortbread cookies and his snack pies to "work" at the SUS2.5. I got him some strawberry wafer cookies, and a pack of generic iced oatmeal cookies.

The next stop was the produce section, where I picked up a 3-lb bag of Vidalia-style onions, and then the slaw. It was the 44-oz container, for $8.99, which is expensive for slaw, but more economical than the 14-oz container for $3.99. Slaw does not go to waste at our house.

All that was left were the scratchers. I thumbed my nose at protocol, and wheeled my cart with groceries down an empty checkout lane to get my tickets before getting in line to pay for the food. I scanned in my winners at the right side machine, and was picking my tickets when a man walked up to the left machine. I had to wait a couple minutes for him to finish. Which I did politely, behind him by the empty checkouts, not breathing down his neck and sighing heavily.

He finished and went into the aisles, and I got my tickets and went towards the only open checkout. A man was paying, and a woman with a full beeper cart was waiting. As I was turning my cart to get into the line, here comes the Ticket Buyer. He was probably early 40s, in navy blue track pants with a double white stripe, and a white shirt, black hair in a short cut.

"Go ahead." He only had a couple things in his hands.

"No, you can."

"I'm okay." 

I was moving on back before turning my cart into the line when another man walked up. He was 50-ish, in jeans, kind of balding.

"Oh, you can go in front of me."

"Are you sure? I don't have to."

"It's fine. Both of you have less than I do."

Baldy got in line, and I turned in behind him.

"I only need one item."

"I would, too, if it wasn't for my husband, heh, heh!"

Another checker girl came up and opened the next line. She called for people she could help. I told Baldy to go ahead. He was wanting a can of Skoal. Then another lady with a full cart came up and hurriedly got into that line. Not that I cared. 

The beeper cart lady paid, and was having her groceries put into her beeper cart. They called a stockboy up front to help her load them outside. Ticket Buyer moved up. He only had a couple things, no cart. He paid in cash. The checker had trouble counting his change out of the tray, then handed it to him. 

I had my groceries already on the conveyor. I waited for Checker to scan my two sodas on the side of the cart. She did, and rang up my stuff, and put it in bags. Ticket Buyer was still standing at the end of the conveyor, counting his money. I wished he would do that somewhere else, so I could move up to the card-reader. THEN he asked Checker something, and counted out more money and handed it to her. Huh. He must have forgotten something. Maybe he also got some tobacco product while I wasn't paying attention.

"There you go! You're done." Checker brought my bags up over the conveyor, and put them in my cart.

"Oh. No. I still have to move up to pay!"

"No you don't!

That's when it dawned on me. TICKET BUYER HAD PAID FOR MY GROCERIES! He turned and smiled.

"Oh, that's so nice! You didn't have to do that. Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome." He turned to walk out.

"Good luck on your tickets!"

"Thanks."

I really hope he won something. I barely won money back. But then, I was ahead $28 and change, from the price of my groceries he paid for. I'd give you the exact amount, but I didn't get the receipt, heh, heh!

There IS hope for humanity! I plan to contribute by paying for somebody's groceries. I'd like it to be for somebody elderly, or maybe a harried mom, or an old guy buying ice cream and chips and beer. We'll see who checks out before or after me in the future. 

I'll have to be careful not to insult anybody. Some people have too much pride. 

Not this old Val!