Friday, June 08, 2007

A contest ! Maybe even with prizes!

Wednesday night I found out why the owners were so eager to take the other offer. It was for cash. A real plus since the owners want to close by the end of this month. They told Dv this because now the buyer is talking about financing and he seems to have annoyed the owner. So the owner asked us to look into an appraiser and basically be ready because he might decide to go with us. Exciting, right? And also very very mean. He has promised to tell us either Sunday night or Monday morning, depending on how late he and his wife get back from the weekend (How can he go away at a time like this!) So I have all weekend to think things like ;"I hope I get the place. I'm never going to find a place with such a nice kitchen for that price. A slipper chair would look so nice next to the fireplace. Dammit Jess stop thinking like you'll get it! Now you've jinxed it. " rinse and repeat. Then of course there is the ultimate question, Stress Eating vs Anxiety Induced Nausea; who will win? So in an effort to keep myself sane I've devised this desperate plea for comments mildly amusing game.

Tell me why they need to close so soon. Some background; They seem like nice people. I've only meet the husband but he seems like just your everyday blue-collar mid thirties just started a family suburbanite. Drives an SUV, has boring even by Pottery-Barn-standards taste in furniture. His new house probably has a picket fence. He's pretty good looking and I imagine his wife and child are as well. By suburban standards. Really you don't have much to go on. Be as outrageous as you like. There are no censors here. Points will be awarded for making me laugh out loud, 2 points for making Dv laugh out loud, Triple points if either one of us shoots a beverage out our nose while reading your comment (I cannot guarantee that every post will be read while drinking but what are the chances that we'll stop at this point). 4 points if you make Dv blush (0 points for making me blush. There is no challenge in making a redhead change color.), 1/2 point for including a pun and so on. Oh and points for sending people here since my already slim readership is probably all off enjoying the summer. Actual prizes will be awarded if we get the place and if not you can all be disappointed with me.

15 comments:

Devorah said...

Hmmm ... The boring answer is that they are overextended on the new place. The creative answer ...

The bats that live in the chimney flue are most active during the summer and they know they will never be able to sell the place if people know they have bats in their belfry.

Do I get a second chance if I think of something more creative? My brain is a bit burned right now.

Anonymous said...

You see... He failed to make his yearly offering to the great pengiun god. He must now make restitution by lying prostrate on the great iceburg for 40 days and 40 nights. The closest iceburg is now in antartica due to Global warming, thus the need for quick money from the sale of the house. He is hiding this shame from his wife, who thinks he is going on a business trip to new zealand to inspect fleeces.Good luck with this guy...

Chris said...

He's renting the family as a cover. Witness Protection Program and they're onto him - he has to get away quickly! (I know, not very funny or creative - but it's late...)

Helen said...

He's a serial budgie murderer, who has "buried" the bodies in the basement. He's sure that his mother-in-law, a bird maven of the highest order, suspects that he's up to something nefarious, and since she's more inquisitive than a three year old who's been told not to look in a certain room, he wants to not only be elsewhere when she hits town in July, but to not own this place when she arrives so she'll have no way to come snooping around.

Jennifer said...

Well, having been in the buying and selling situation a couple of times, I can relate to the utter and total madness. Here's my creative answer.

The wife is in the witness protection program for snitching on a well known drug czar and pimp daddy named Mr. Bubbles out in New York. She was Bubbles chief accountant and booty call. Her cover was blown when her picture got placed in a local newspaper for baking the biggest swiss chard tart. Now Mr and Mrs. Pottery Barn have to beat a hasty retreat out of their home before Bubbles puts a hit out on her SUV.

How's that? :-)

Good luck on the house. I know how stresful it can be. When we were looking for our first home, we put bids on 5 places before we finally got one. That's California for you.

Sarah said...

They're contestants on a not-yet-aired reality TV show in which couples compete in different challenges related to major life decisions. One is buying a house and then selling it as fast as they can. Then there's the challenge of planning and going through a black-tie, ultra-formal wedding. The final challenge is having a baby, but the producers are still testing that one with focus groups because 9 months is a long time to wait and they're worried about losing viewership.

Jeanne said...

First of all, just relax and keep picturing yourself IN the house, enjoying your life there. Erase all negative thoughts. And thank Chaos and Mayhem for my visit. (I'll be back!)

Why must they sell so fast? Could be an estate issue--my sister and I have to sell Grandma's house before our Mother's estate can be settled. Or they're fugitives from justice.

Or... he just found out the house is built on a fault line, and seismologists have predicted a major earthquake next month. Is the house near an airport? Maybe the house is directly beneath the dumping zone and he's tired of the smell!

Shirley said...

Hi I'm here from Stumbling Over Chaos. Are you taking international entries?

Maybe you've only met the husband because his wife doesn't know about this bachelor pad he has in another part of the city. The furniture's boring because it's stuff he has picked up off of the curb so furniture store charges don't show up on his credit card account. But now she's found out his stock room job doesn't actually include out of town business trips and she's asking questions ...

Or they read your blog and are awarding points to 1) how many times you mention them 2) how upset you get 3) clues to whether you're willing to raise your offer 4) do you really believe that there is another offer.

Good Luck!

maryse said...

i don't have a fun answer for you right now, it's early and i haven't had enough coffee.

but when i sold my place the buyer wanted a 2 week closing.

FemiKnitMafia said...

They're trying to sell this place, but they bought the other place two months ago and can't afford both.

Meanwhile ... he found out that StepfordWife is actually cheating on him with their real estate attorney, so the thought of sitting across a table from this man is nauseating. He just wants to hurry the process, so he can fire the attorney, leave the StepfordWife in the new house and find his own place. It's hard to pay for 3 houses at one time, especially when your wife is losing credibility at her job for taking long lunches with a strange man.

Clearly, that's the story.

Heide said...

Ghost Busters and Father O'Flanagan were both unsuccessful at ridding the house of the evil spirits within. Said spirits tend to be at their wildest on the solstice (which is just a few weeks away). The previous owner knows that blood offerings placate the ghosts to some degree, but because they're out of poodles the husband is afraid that the Mrs. has been sizing him up for the alter. He knows that he's not always been the best of husbands and that she really doesn't want to spend hot summer months scrubbing ectoplasm off the walls.

Just A Knit Wit said...

The signs are nearly in alignment for the mighty beast to arise from it's place of slumber, which sadly is what the house has been built over. In the creatures lust for blood he will surely destroy the house and all that live there.

OR

That woman he married in Vegas while totally drunk has found him and the baby is due soon. He's got to get away before she shows up looking for financial support.

OR

The government has finished the test run of the extraterrestrial immersion experiment. The pseudo-flesh that the seller is using will expire soon, leaving him pale green, bug eyed and creepy. He must sell the house and return to the mother ship before this happens or face heavy fines.

OR

He's house-sitting for his wealthy cousin, who is off touring Europe with his new trophy-wife. They're due back just days after the closing. That'll teach them for leaving him off of the usher list!

OR

His brothel license is expiring soon and since pimping taxes are getting too high he's quitting the trade and joining the priesthood. Those nuns' habits are kinda sexy, and the church only takes 10% of the profits instead of the government's 35%.

OR

He spent all his money to feed his wife's twinky addiction. And now, on top of more money for cream-filled delights, he needs a bigger house to fit her fat ass.

OR

His daughter is one of those creepy blond-haired, blue-eyed children of the corn with mind control powers. She's making him sell it so fast because she wants a pony and a castle. And a death-ray.

Ok... I'm done. For now.

KnitMe said...

The succinct version is OVEREXTENDED. No news there. And when a buyer moves from cash to financed, it suggests GLITCH to the seller.

Buying/Selling a house is like speed dating. Once you're a home owner--you're totally married (and NOT to your spouse but to the house). So the seller has been speed dating THE buyer and the two of you. Houses, like cars are women. Before you have enough time to realize that your lovely and beautiful date (to whom you have proposed) has thinning hair instead of that frost kit from the pharmacy and is actually a well-wardrobed size 12 instead of the size 8 that you have ASS-U-ME-D following the cocktail that the two of you shared. Forget the Titans, remember the Beer Goggles.

The good karma that you felt when you walked through? A temporary IP address (Initial Perception). It expires shortly and cruel summer heat will shortly reveal that lovely lot is the local hotspot. All those feline hoochie-mammas oogling the Toms are they strut their stuff on your front catwalk. (The lovely flower gardens? Litterboxes.)

Your seller has figured out that he can't learn all the lawn-mowing choreagraphy in The 'Burbs AND successfully maintain the "starter" house. His wife really needs her PB decorating scheme and there's no commission check for another quarter.

So your seller has moved from the first-date buyer and all of his flash-cash and shiny shoes to that wonderfully put together, crinkle-in-the-corner-when-he-smiles guy in the "4-door-sedan-pre-approved financing, I'm comfortable in myself and would love to call your gal my own". (you may take a breath now).

Being the second date, you too see how lovely she'll (remember THE house) look with a quality haircut and some much better highlights, a wax and some bleach. Why try and make a smart, sassy city-girl into a cookie-cutter coiffed, capri sporting, Mom-mobile driving suburban princess?

The senseless seller wants to rid himself of this lovely gal, who is educated, experienced and shares your interests (I KNOW that you've been imagining hosting family gatherings and your knitting group from that fabulous huge kitchen). The selfish seller doesn't see that she's got great bones to birth happy memories for you and Dv. In his quest for cash, he has not recognized that yours would be a much better marriage than his ever was. How you would allow this Uptown Girl to be herself and to blossom in a new wardrobe of painted rooms and to celebrate her lack of suburban locale. Can you say less baggage?

It's a laugh or cry situation. The waiting is rotten. Perhaps the seller is simply pregnant and ready to give birth to an alien baby. But perhaps not--that would take less time.

Sending you both peace and calm. For a distraction, find the 1 movie and 2 song references/implications in my silly story. If you get the complete mucsical score, I'll help you move. Thank Chaos and May for sending my over to your "house" to play.....Lisa G

Anonymous said...

Wife and daughter? You know there is no wife and daughter. The photos in the frames are the ones that were there when he bought them at Pottery Barn. You knew you thought you'd seen them somewhere before. He needs to leave town during the bad traffic over the 4th of July weekend. Just another sand colored Ford Explorer on the highway. No one from the neighborhood, the one you are moving to, will really remember what he was driving when he pulled into the garage every night. No one knew he was a goverment entomologist specializing in the offspring of the giant mutant ants featured in the movie "Them". This brood is scheduled to hatch in 3 weeks.

Crazy For Yarn In Alabama said...

Hmmmm, maybe the guy is really a mob guy...trying to sell his house for cash before he goes into the witness protection plan..oh...just do NOT dig up the back yard for a pool!!!