The Exotic Dance of Home Buying

I'm finding out the hard way that home buying is like a striptease. The pieces come off at an agonizing speed. I don't think I've ever felt more unprepared and lost, even including the time that I got off the bus at the wrong school on my second day of Kindergarten. Reading seven home buying books, and enough articles to bore even an enthusiastic Realtor to tears didn’t prepare me for this. I think I would have been better educated if I’d slept on the books and tried to accumulate the information through osmosis. At least then I would have gotten some sleep deprivation training.

There have been so many concessions and little disappointments, but really this is the first house we were thinking about buying while we were touring the home. When we snooped around the neighborhood and saw an empty lot within two houses of our interested house, I said, “What’s the worst it could be: an Auto Mall?” We were not deterred when we found out it was, indeed, going to be an Auto Mall.

It’s also spiting distance from the Chandler Municipal Airport. They have little put-put planes. When I found this out I was pretty upset about it, but Sweetface reminded me that I was probably closer to an airstrip when I lived on various Air Force bases. Them F16s used to put me to sleep at night. Now I just have to worry about bi-plane flying nutjobs landing on my roof. Which reminds me, I should check my homeowner’s policy.

Now that our offer has been accepted, it feels like I’m onstage and a bunch of strangers have their hands in my pockets. It’s as if I am a stripper, only instead of putting money in, they’re taking money out. It wouldn’t be so bad if I knew what the whopping total would come to, but apparently the amount is more mysterious than the location of Jimmy Hoffa. I have a lump in my throat that’s been there pretty much since we put the offer down a week ago. Somewhere in my head I know it’s not the end of the world, but I can’t remember feeling this wretched for such a long period of time. Maybe it would help if I cut back on the Diet Dr. Pepper.

There has been one home buying frustration after another. I’ve had to track down documents from the title company and the Inspection report from the Termite Inspector. I actually signed a contract where the escrow company referred to itself as it’s. I thought lawyers could spell. (I realize there are misspellings/typos in this blog, but this is not a legal document meant to protect me from people like those who are dumb enough to use their hair dryers while they’re sleeping.) And did I hear back from the City Planner Martin Mouthfullamarbles about the Auto Mall that is going to be built in our back yard even though I called him twice? No! There seems to be way too much fannying about.

Before all of this I was under the impression that planning a wedding was difficult. It was nothing compared to this rib crunching heartache. It wasn’t that bad; even when I misplaced the CD with the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Suite for the wedding ceremony and I almost blew a fuse when the DJ suggested using the meowing cat version of the song. No, he wasn’t joking. Yes, I nearly killed a man that day. It was a good thing that I already had my make-up on.

Hold on a sec, I got a call…

That was Mr. Mouthfullamarbles. He says that the dealerships will have walkie-talkies, so we won’t hear “Timmy, quit doing doughnuts in the parking lot and get back to rotating tires,” over loudspeakers. And the lights will have special shielding. For some reason it makes me feel a lot better. Admitting to a belief in special shielding on the Internet will probably open me up to even more pleas for help from relatives of Nigerian dignitaries. If the shielding is a City Planner’s fairy tale I guess there’s always the threat that Cursed Tongue will continue writing sass and publish real names.