We Might Legally Own Cheap House Now!

By the time you read this, we might legally own Cheap House. It's been a long time since last October when Hick first got his hopes up. Monday he talked to Loan Officer, who said the papers were ready, and he thought all they needed were HICK'S signature. But he'd call and let him know after further checking. Tuesday, Loan Officer said that I must also sign, because I'm married to Hick. But that The Pony won't need to sign.

I don't want The Pony to think we're cutting him out of this deal! Supposedly all three of our names will be on the deed. Hick thinks we don't all need to sign, because we're not doing it at a title company, and all the debts were washed clean during the foreclosure. Whatever. Hick will meet me over in Bill-Paying Town on Wednesday afternoon, after my leg therapy. Right now the $15,000 cashier's check is sitting here waiting to be spent! Hick says we don't owe the $500 in property taxes until THIS year, which makes sense, because we will be OWNING it this year.

Meanwhile, expensive work continues on Cheap House. HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) and buddy have already removed the outer siding of the back porch and set it aside to be used on the "new" back of the house. They've torn out the ceiling insulation, and are ready for the walls, and to rip the whole "back porch" room down.

Hick had them save the windows for him to use elsewhere. The roof will be altered to slant down from that peak and tie in with the rest of the house back, once this addition is subtracted. Hick was hoping it could be done for around $10,000. The quote from his roof guy was $12,750. We're going with it. I think Hick sometimes thinks in terms of "cost" and doesn't consider that the roof guy will have to pay his workers and make a little profit. This will be a whole new roof, the sooner the better, since one area leaks with every rain. It will be a shingle roof, not metal. It's cheaper when you consider the angles that will be added to tie in the back without porch room. Metal is more complicated for that.

There's the inside, with Hick and Old Buddy's newly-built wall at the back. They'll use the saved matching siding to cover it. HOS and buddy have to tear down those rafters and roof and walls and floor. This may be done while the roofers are on the house roof, if they can start that job so soon. Hick didn't say progress would be held up until the porch was off.

The Barber of the Kill

With summer fast approaching, and Hick providing my warm-weather coiffure, I harken back to yesteryear, when Hick gave summer haircuts to the boys. Whether they wanted them or not. Somewhere Hick came to possess a set of hair clippers. He had often mentioned that he might set up his own little barbershop out here, if he could find time to go to "barber school."

The older boys took it well. They were 4-6 years old when I first met Hick when we lived in the same apartment complex. HOS and The (Little Future) Veteran were rough-and-tumble boys. They liked shooting BB guns and looking for snakes and lizards and arrowheads. A summer buzzcut as soon as school was out was not something they looked forward to, but was readily accepted.

Our two later boys were not so accepting. The command to "Go get a towel" was met with heavy sighs, resignation, a ducked head, and slow feet. Genius and The Pony were not exactly prissy, but cared more about appearances. Genius begged to wear a vest and bowtie for kindergarten picture day. The Pony refused jeans for his entire school career, only wanting khakis or cargo pants/shorts.

Hick would take them out on the back porch, so the fallen hair dropped through the cracks. The towel was to drape around their shirtless shoulders, and prevent itching and squirming. Actually, there was not much squirming, because the boys were AFRAID of Hick and his clippers. He was not the most gentle or conscientious amateur barber. One year, he nicked The 4-year-old Pony's ear. Blood and tears flowed with equal speed. In true Hick fashion, he said, "If I hurt you, I'm sorry." What in the Not-Heaven? I think drawing blood certainly counts as hurting! So that apology did not need conditions!

Anyhoo... the next summer when Hick told The Pony to "Go get a towel," The Pony reluctantly returned with it draped across his forearms, carrying it to the back porch to his imagined doom.

"This is to catch the blooood," solemnly declared a subdued little Pony.

Hick Is Half a Silver-Tongued Devil

Hick is not known for his tact. Especially where Val is concerned. He speaks without thinking, and then tries to justify his words. I'm hoping. The alternative is that he says these things WITH prior thinking!

Saturday evening, I asked about his meeting with his "roof guy" about Cheap House.

"So what's the price for a new roof?"

"I don't know yet. He looked at it, and said he'd give me the estimate by Monday. While I had him there, I asked him about tearing off the back porch. What he could do it for. I told him HOS [Hick's Oldest Son] and his buddy gave me a price of $1500. He said I should take that, because I wouldn't get it any cheaper."

"So you told him somebody else's estimate? That doesn't seem fair. Can HOS and his buddy even do that kind of work? I thought they might need a backhoe or bobcat to tear it down."

"Oh, yeah. They can do it. It's just pulling down lumber. They won't even need the dumpster. The city already said I could burn the wood in the back yard, as long as I don't burn any shingles. They'll finish with the dumpster in time. They just have the old drywall left to put in it."

"Well, I don't want them to get hurt trying to do something they're not used to."

"It HAS to come down, Val. You haven't seen that back porch. Not to be mean, but it looks like YOU built it!"

"That is NOT a very nice thing to say! So much for not being mean!"

"No. I just mean it looks like a kindergartener did it."

"You're not helping yourself..."

"Somebody who has no idea how to build! That's all I meant. It's falling off..."

"You could have just said that. And not put MY name into it! Did HOS and his buddy find anything they wanted when they cleaned out the house?"

"A few knick-knack kind of things. They sold $125 in junk metal. HOS took one of the dryers home to use. They had a buddy who wanted the refrigerator. HOS said they took it to the carwash and cleaned it, but it's still not a prize."

Good thing Hick didn't say that refrigerator looked like something I would have...

Oh. No.

Here it is, Saturday morning as I sit typing, and still no word on when we will be signing papers to own Cheap House. Or, you know, just showing up with a personal check and no obligation to sign anything, according to Hick's original perception. That's the thing with Hick. His proclamations and declarations and assessment of a situation always CHANGE.

After being so sure we would close on Thursday or Friday, after his conversation Wednesday with Loan Officer... Hick recanted Thursday night. 

"Loan Officer said it should be at the end of this week, or early next week."

"You said it would be Thursday or Friday!"

"Well, that's when the gal said she'd send the papers. So I thought it would be then. But Loan Officer DID say later this week, or early next week."

"You'll need to have time to get a cashier's check."

"I ain't worried about a cashier's check. I can just walk across the street and get one from the main bank."

Right now I'm guessing that the closing won't be on Monday. I doubt the Savings & Loan assumes every client will just walk across the street for a cashier's check. I imagine they notify them to allow time for such things.

Besides, I have something more serious to worry about. Also sprung on me Thursday night.

"This new house has a really weird floor plan. The living room is in front, with a bedroom. And you walk down a hall to the kitchen in the back. Off the kitchen is what has to be the other bedroom. But it has a door to the outside! Nobody wants a door to the outside in their bedroom!" [Let the record show that our own home, built by Hick, has a set of French doors that exit onto the back of our wraparound porch.] 

I was thinkin', I could make it just like the other one. The hall is plenty wide. I could make both front rooms the bedrooms. Fit in another bathroom. The hall leads to the kitchen, and the living room would be off the kitchen, with that door to the outside. So you'd have a back entrance right into the living room."

"WAIT a minute! Isn't that something for the next flipper to decide? I thought we were only fixing up the structure, and selling it quick, as a flip. You already have that other house to work on."

"I'm just sayin', Val, that Loan Officer said this house would sell at $130,000 to $145,00 if it was all fixed up."

"You don't need two flips at once!"

Hick wisely shut down his campaign to keep Cheap House. I said we would get the basics done, then list it for 2-3 months. If we didn't get any offers, THEN we could consider finishing it. The Pony is on my side this time.

Meanwhile, Hick's roof guy is meeting him at 5:00 tonight to give an estimate on a new roof for Cheap House.

The Continuing Quest to Legally Purchase Cheap House

It's been two weeks since Hick was the only prospective buyer to show up at the courthouse steps foreclosure auction of Cheap House. Not a single signature has been put to paper. We THINK we're buying this house for $15,500, per verbal agreements and the previous paperwork.

Meanwhile, Hick has forged ahead. Bought padlocks, bought lumber and boarded up broken windows, turned on the electricity. He paid HOS-and-buddy $500 for the completed cleanout of junk. Rented a $650 industrial dumpster. Paid $634.55 for six months of insurance. Paid $150 for trimming a tree that rubbed on the roof. HOS-and-buddy are now tearing out ceilings and walls. I haven't heard their price for that.

WE HAD BETTER OWN THIS HOUSE!

Hick keeps telling me it's a done deal. He went by the Savings & Loan on Wednesday. Loan Officer called the title company. "She" said they were getting the papers ready, and should have them Thursday or Friday, and would send them over. It is Thursday afternoon as I type this. Still no word. Hick thinks the closing will be at the Savings & Loan, which is fine with me. I just want a closing! CLOSURE, if you will!

Meanwhile, Hick has been puttering around, checking on the progress of HOS-and-buddy, and deciding what he wants to do with Cheap House. One thing for sure is to tear off the back porch, which was converted into a bedroom.

"I was looking around on the porch, and I found a billfold! It has three different social security cards, and two different driver's licenses. They was all for a woman. I took it over to the police station. The gal there went and got an officer, who was also a gal. She looked through it, and then said, 'So? What do you want me to do with it?' 

I thought that was a stupid question. It wasn't mine. I didn't want that in my possession. I wanted to point out that it was in a house where a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer had lived! You'd think they might want to know that. Or see if any of those identities were connected to crimes."

I guess it's a wonder that guy got caught at all!

Measurements, the Unspoken, and Porter Wagoner

Val is no Biblical Samson. Her strength comes from within, not from her long flowing locks. Which are excessively long, not having been trimmed since before her Unfortunate HospitVALzation back in 2022. That's a long time!!! Normal hair grows about 1/2 inch per month. That would give Val 24 extra inches of hair! Thankfully, Val does not have normal hair. It's limp and seemingly lifeless, and grows slower. That said, my hair was down between my shoulder blades. A supermullet of epic proportion!

It's not that I didn't WANT to get my hair cut. It was just inconvenient. You may recall that my salon of choice was Terrible Cuts. The chain. My location was in a mini-mall, with Little Caesar's Pizza on the other end, and a Payday Loan business in between. I was fine with that. I'd gone there for years, even taking the boys when they were young.

Then I got sick, and wasn't feeling up to an outing for a haircut. Then my knees were really hurty, and I didn't like to think about walking up the hill from parking to get inside Terrible Cuts. Nor trying to bend my right knee to perch my foot on the footrest of the lifty chair. THEN there was a fire!!! In Little Caesar's. Which swept through the ceilings (FIREWALLS, anybody?) and ruined all three businesses. The renovations have just begun over the past couple months. I have no idea if the same businesses will even return. So Val has been a woman without a salon. I made do by trimming my own bangs. And occasionally having The Pony or Hick cut off the ends so they stayed out of my collar.

For the past year, at least, and likely more... my "stylists" have been reluctant to pick up the scissors. The Pony did a fine job the first time, but seems to have lost interest in coiffing me. Hick always has something else to do. I'd better not find out he's been cutting Harem hair!

I could stand it no longer. On Sunday evening, I TOLD Hick he was cutting my hair. I put on an old collar-less shirt and grabbed the scissors and a comb. I wet my hair at the kitchen sink, and took Hick out on the back porch. 

"Just do it like last time. Comb it straight down. I want it at shoulder level. Here. Start at this side. Then work your way around to to the other side."

What could possibly go wrong? Most people know what a shoulder is. They can run a comb down through a section of hair. Cut along the bottom, at the shoulder. Then continue combing down swatches of hair, cutting them off even with the first section. RIGHT????

It started out all right. Though I questioned Hick if that was my shoulder. He said it was. My first panic occurred at the back of my head.

"WAIT! Why do I feel the scissors at the base of my skull? STOP! Why are you up that high?"

"I'm not, Val. I'm just cutting." SNIP SNIP.

My second panic was when Hick got to the end, the other front side. He didn't even want me to turn around!

"What do you mean? You HAVE to look me in the face. To make sure both sides are even!"

"No I don't. It's even." I forced him to look me in the face. "Well. This side might need a little more..."

I felt where Hick had cut. My hair was GONE! My shoulders won't be reintroduced to that hair for at least three months! Maybe four! How can a man not know what a shoulder is? Does he think it's a void midway between ear and collar bone?

Of course all Hick the Gaslighter had to say was: "I think it looks cute."

When I picked up The Pony on Monday, to come out for our BBQ, I had to ask.

"Aren't you going to say anything about my haircut?"

"Oh. Well..."

"I suppose your hesitation says all I need to hear."

"No. It's... shorter." 

"I KNOW! Your dad can't do one simple thing! I know you're not old enough to remember, but Dad has made me look like PORTER WAGONER! I have that CD of Porter and Dolly's 20 greatest hits. Maybe you remember the cover."

"Uh. Kind of."

"Yeah. That's what I thought. I have Porter Wagoner's haircut. Only shorter."

I find it kind of odd that not one person has mentioned my haircut. When usually that's the first thing they say. Like the clerks I see regularly at the Gas Station Chicken Store, or in 10Box. I guess they're not Porter Wagoner fans.

Unexpected, Probably Doomed, But FREE

In Saturday's box of chocolates, life gave me a rooster. I didn't ask for a rooster. I didn't want a rooster. But Hick brought one home.

"Look what I traded for today im bringing him home"

In typical Hick fashion, the story changed by the time he got home. I never found out what he traded, because the tale changed to the rooster being FREE.

"Last weekend, a guy was down at the flea market with a rooster he was trying to get rid of. I told him the lady who lives next to the flea market has chickens. That he could just let it go. So he did. The lady with the chickens didn't want him--"

"I guess not! I'm sure she has her own rooster!"

"Anyway, she kept runnin' him off. So he came back to the flea market, and was hanging out there all week."

"He's probably starving!"

"No. He was free-rangin'. But today, Old Buddy was feeding him potato chips. I figured I'd just bring the poor guy home with me."

"How is THAT going to work? The dogs or something wild will kill him!"

"I thought they'd just sniff at him. But they chased him all around the yard! It took me about an hour to catch him! He's over in the old chicken pen now."

"He'll fly out!"

"No. He's had his wings clipped. I didn't know that, until he tried to fly and get away from the dogs."

"Oh, no! He can't even roost in a tree! Something's going to eat him for sure!"

"You don't know that."

"What do you plan to feed him?"

"He's free-rangin' for now. Down in the back of the old goat pen."

"I feel really bad for him. There's no way for him to survive here! He was probably better off at the flea market! Somebody might have picked him up and taken him home for a pet."

"Or he mighta got in the road and got run over. That won't happen here."

I don't know. I hope this rooster can survive. The odds are not good. We used to have 33 chickens. Before the neighbor's dogs found out. I'm sure those dogs are gone now. But our dogs haven't been raised with chickens. They'll let the squirrels run rampant, and the birds eat out of their food pan. But this rooster is a new challenge.

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On Sunday morning, Hick went over to the pen to look for the rooster.

"I don't see him. He might be down in the woods."

"Or EATEN! By something else in the woods. Can he get in the chicken house?"

"Yeah. He can get in there. But he ain't there."

Sunday evening, Hick walked over to look for the rooster again. Nothing.

"I don't know where he is. He can get out, over behind the BARn. Jack could probably get in under the fence there, but I don't think Pepper knows about it. Maybe he's just living down in the woods to avoid the dogs, since he knows they'll go after him."

Well. Hick IS an optimist...

Five minutes later, Hick was in his recliner, watching TV. I was at the kitchen table innernetting. I heard the dogs barking in the front yard. Kind of frantic, not in their usual play mode. Then they came around to the back porch, tussling and worrying each other and yipping, as they are wont to do.

"I think that might be him in the front yard! I just saw something run across!"

Hick got up and looked out the door. Yes. It was his rooster. Maybe the dogs are not out to kill, just have a little fun with him, since they gave up and came back on the porch. I suppose the rooster heard Hick over there looking around for him, and came back to where Hick let him loose when they got home.

I hope this rooster can survive. He might even get a name.

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