The 2013 calendars are available! All the calendars are marked up by $2, and all profits go to Challenger’s House.
I’ll put this up at the top of the entries for the rest of the week for those who don’t read every day or who read via a reader, and after this week they’ll be in the sidebar to the right.
If you’re interested in reading Fred’s latest book but don’t have a Kindle and don’t want to download the (free!) Kindle app to read it on your computer or phone or iPod or what have you, you can now get The Convert in paperback. Here’s the Amazon link.
If you’re thinking about getting The Convert on Kindle but haven’t yet, AND you think you might want to read his previous book, No Limit, they’re now available together at one low price. Here’s the Amazon link (and it’s also in the sidebar to the right.)
Lastly, if you’ve ever wanted to be Facebook BFFs with Fred, NOW IS YOUR CHANCE. He’s finally all set up and running at Facebook, and you can FB friend him here.
At the end of September, Fred and I decided that with rates being so low, it was time to refinance the house. This decision was aided by the fact that Fred had JUST been looking online to see what the current rates were, when he got an email from a guy who works at a mortgage company – we’ll call him Alvin, which is not his real name, DUH – letting him know that NOW IS THE TIME TO REFINANCE, FRED ANDERSON! He ran the numbers, he gave us some HORSESHIT estimate about how much money we’d save, and we nodded like the naive douchebags we are, and signed a shit ton of papers giving him the go-ahead to, y’know, go ahead.
At some point – in one of the emails Alvin sent – I saw that they intended to get the refi done as quickly as possible, “about 10 – 12 days.”
I wondered if we’d close before I headed off to Myrtle Beach, which was two weeks from the day we signed the first flurry of papers.
Ha. Ha. HA. FUCKING HA.
After we signed the papers, scanned every fucking one of them, and emailed them back to Alvin, he sent us a short list of stuff we needed to scan and get to him. We did that. And then every day for the next week, he emailed randomly to request something else that had to be scanned and sent (I fucking LOATHE THE MOTHERFUCK out of scanning because it’s a pain in the ass and also there are 10,000 little asshole kittens who want to know WHAT the fuck I am doing, HOW the fuck I think I’m going to accomplish it, and PARDON ME I’M GOING TO BITE THAT, LADY.) One day he requested a scan of Fred’s driver’s license.
“Does he need a copy of mine, too?” I asked.
“He didn’t say that he did,” Fred said.
So I didn’t scan my license. Three days later, he said “Oh, and I need a scan of your wife’s license, too.”
Hey, I HAVE A BRAIN STORM. What if –
oh, I know. It’s absolutely batshit insane to even THINK THIS –
WHAT IF, if you’re in charge of refinances, WHAT IF you sent a LIST of the shit you need so that the people who are jumping through your hoops could just GO DOWN THE GODDAMN LIST AND GET EVERYTHING TOGETHER AND SEND IT AT THE SAME TIME? What if?
Time passed, pages flew off the calendar, I went to Myrtle Beach and came back again.
“When is the appraiser going to come and appraise the house?” I asked Fred.
He shrugged.
I finally noticed that it seemed like every time Fred heard something from Alvin, the fucking monthly mortgage payment went up another $25 – $50. Fred went from pointing out how much we were saving every month, to pointing out how much we’d be saving every year, so that it sounded like it would still be worth the hassle of all this horseshit.
On November 1st, I said “Can you ask Alvin if I’m supposed to pay the goddamn motherFUCKing mortgage for November, or what the fucking fuck I’m supposed to do?”
Alvin told him that I shouldn’t pay the mortgage, that everything (a month after we began) was just about ready to go, and we should be closing soon. He was just waiting on the appraisal. The appraisal we paid $450 for, and we still hadn’t heard anything from any appraiser who wanted to come inside the house and, you know. DO THE FUCKING APPRAISAL.
And THEN word came back that the appraisal was done, and the house wasn’t worth what we thought it was.
“But… no one came into the house to see the inside of the house to DO the appraisal,” I objected.
“I guess they were able to pull up information from the previous appraisal?” Fred offered.
A few days went by, and then I lost my fucking shit, spurred by some event that I don’t recall at the moment. I should add here that I am on progesterone, and the thing about being on progesterone is that you go off it for five days every month so that, I don’t know. YOU JUST DO. Most months it’s perfectly fine, but in times of stress, it’s very very bad. Apparently I need progesterone to keep me chilled the fuck out.
So I lost my shit. I bellowed and screamed and swore at Fred, and I called Alvin every name in the book (to Fred, behind Alvin’s back as all Klassy Ladies do) and I swore some more. I’m pretty sure that if Alvin had showed up at my door, I would have stabbed him directly in his eye with the nearest sharp object like they kill the zombies on The Walking Dead, and then fed him to the kittens.
AND THEN I started looking at the appraisal, and I swore and bitched and screamed some more, and then I pointed out to Fred that NOTHING on the goddamn appraisal aside from the address was right. Fred called Alvin and said “What’s going on with the appraisal appeal?”, because Alvin had said he would appeal the appraisal. Alvin fumbled and stuttered around, making it CRYSTAL FUCKING CLEAR that he’d done no such thing, had probably just hoped we’d shut the fuck up and sign the papers. Fred went through the appraisal with a fine-tooth comb and made a list of everything the appraiser had missed.
I was seeing red. I was ready to burn this shit down. I was ready to go ON A MOTHERFUCKING RAMPAGE.
I looked up the appraiser online. I told Fred that I COULD. NOT. WAIT. until this was all done and over with so that I could leave a SCATHING review of the incredibly SHITTY appraisal that the appraiser did. I asked “Google, motherfucker, do I have any recourse when a fucking HACK decides that my two-story house is a one-story RANCH and thus appraises the house for FAR FUCKING LESS (in my estimation) than it’s worth?” and Google said “Bitch, your best course of action is to CANCEL that motherfucking refi and go with someone else.”
Alvin called Fred the next day. Apparently when he called the appraiser, the appraiser had said “Well, you only wanted an exterior appraisal, so that’s what I did.”
OH. RILLY. ALVIN. That is VERY FUCKING INTERESTING, ALVIN.
Alvin has now ordered a thorough appraisal that apparently consists of something more in-depth than the appraiser driving by the house, snapping a few blurry pictures, and then daydreaming about what the inside of the house might look like.
Alvin is going to pay the difference between the “Shoddy Hack Simple Appraisal” and the “Super Deluxe Almost Done Right Appraisal”.
YOU ARE GODDAMN RIGHT YOU’RE PAYING THE DIFFERENCE, ALVIN.
So now we’re waiting for the appraiser to mosey around to calling Fred and setting up the appointment. I am back on my progesterone, but Fred goddamn well better be here when the appraiser comes wander around the house, because I am not sure I won’t feed him to the kittens just because.
And that’s where the fuck I’ve been, motherfuckers. I hope your refi went/ is going/ will go better and more smoothly than ours.
Previously
2011: No entry.
2010: My colon will be the pretty, pretty princess of all colons, and then it shall rule the world.
2009: I have been a canning fool this week.
2008: WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH SCOOP HANDS?!
2007: I thought if the remote was lost, you were screwed.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Did you think I was writing this from The Great Beyond?
2003: Wonder if I appear too old and feeble to help with the loading of the groceries.
2002: That’s your trivia fact for the day. You’re welcome!
2001: Amish country.
2000: No entry.
1999: Hey, this is some exciting stuff, isn’t it? What will I talk about next, dryer lint? Woohoo, somebody stop me!