In which I stay in bed all day whimpering to the real estate gods

Dear Innernets,

If you have any room in your heart or your day that would allow you to send a little positive real-estate-closing energy in the direction of my brother and me, we sure could use it.

We are supposed to close on our mother's house sometime this afternoon.

I will spare you the blow-by-blow account of this house-selling adventure (edited to add: No I won't, read on), but I will tell you that in the past four months, we have had three contracts - two of which fell apart. One of those fell apart on closing day. Twice.

For this third contract, we moved the closing day back one week from the 10th to the 17th. On the day of the 17th, it didn't happen, and we were told "tomorrow - Monday or Tuesday at the latest."

We've spent the last week hearing from the buyers' mortgage broker that it will be "tomorrow." We have spoken so often and so frustratingly with that broker, my sister-in-law Lila and I have started calling him K-Fed because he inspires in us the same slack-jawed disgust as the other K-Fed.

He is definitely in the cooker. We've already bought the paper plates.

On Friday evening, he assured me that FINALLY all the paperwork was in order and that "as long as we don't have a hurricane, we should be able to close on Monday afternoon."

Fuck.

I'm not getting out of bed until the house sells. Or until I get really hungry.

In which I act like a real mom

Thank goodness for girlfriends. And thank goodness my son has one.

If it were not for his girlfriend, we would not have spent two days last week driving across the state to visit a miniscule village in the middle of nowhere and the college campus that envelops Main Street.

Xerxes' girlfriend has fallen in love with this school and has every intention of attending. This is her third visit there, and she attended a weeklong writing program there this summer.

This is not the only campus she has visited. Her mother forced her into the car at the appropriate age and hauled her all over New York looking at institutions of higher learning.

I didn't know forcing was an option.

Apparently, the girlfriend also has taken her SAT and ACT exams. Again - I should have forced?

Frankly, no, I shouldn't have. My son is an amazing young man, but if I had stuffed him into the car and dragged his ass to one college after another, it would have been more likely to ensure that he never set foot in an accredited institution of his own free will.

This way is much better.

He loved visiting the campus, and he wants to visit others now. He has formed opinions about student-teacher ratios and meal plans. He is personally invested.

And I learned something, too. Visiting colleges is fun.

I didn't do it when I was in high school. I think it didn't occur to my mother to do that sort of thing. Or maybe she looked at my high school attendance record and decided that I wouldn't be able to hack it in a real school. Whatever the case, the summer after my senior year, she drove me to the local community college and signed me up.

In the end, I'm glad she did. I met JC the very first day of classes. I also met my first husband, my son's birth father. So I can't say I would have wanted things to happen any other way.

But to have walked a real campus at 16 or 17, and met those professors and eaten in a dining hall ... and to have had someone guiding me in that direction instead of telling me that those things were for other people. Well, that would have been pretty damn spiffy.

And, my own lesson learned, I'm going to start visiting colleges with Buttercup the year she enters kindergarten.

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Edited to add: I have one toe on the floor. My Realtor just called and said that paperwork is moving, and a closure looks imminent. Did I spell that right? Probably not, and the blinking spellcheck doesn't work with blinking Safari.

My dear friends, this is the Little Real Estate Transaction That Could. Chant with me: I think it can, I think it can, I think it can...

Comments

[StepBlog]

Three things:

1. Good luck good luck good luck with your closing, may it happen.

2. "I wish K-Fed would get hit by a bus." Comment by me to Loverman while reading paper over breakfast this weekend.

3. Yeah, college campuses are the bomb diggity. Hope Xerxes gets on the higher ed train.

[Mary Tsao]

Good luck with the house closing!

I never visited college campuses as a kid either. But I certainly am going to with my kids. I'm excited just thinking about it and they're only 3 and 1.

Must be neat to see your son get excited about college.

[jenn]

Oooh! I said a little prayer to St. Joseph, well-known patron saint of anyone trying their damnedest to get rid of a house. I hope it went off without a hitch!

[Peripateticpolarbear]

Oh, I'm hoping and hoping for you. And yes, visiting colleges is far more fun than attending them!

[Elizabeth]

"I think it can I think it can"! Hope that helps.

My parents expected me to go to my Mother's alma mater and there was pretty much no arguing about it. So I never got to do the campus search either.

[raehan]

And I hope the little engine did!