The Saga Continues

Here I am, fresh from my NaNo win - thank you, thank you very much! - the holidays are here and I am dreaming of what I will buy myself for my birthday this year. (Coach, here I come!) I had just told my MIL what I want her to do regarding a few houses we looked at/heard about and now I am looking forward, not backward.

I go to the store this afternoon, on my lunchbreak, to buy socks for Daughter because she needs them, first of all, but also because I have a strange love of socks. Nothing better than a new pair of colorful, soft footwear, I say. I am, alas, too old to buy socks by the pound now because they just don't work with most of my workwear - though I can buy some new ones for the weekend, huh? - so I'm cuckoo for socks for my daughter's sake instead. Those colors just make me smile.

Anyhoo, I see, while I wait for the saleswoman to become free (because the socks are behind the register), that Mr. T. has called me. So instead of listening to his message, I call him back.

"I just left you a long message," he says breathlessly.

"OK. What was it?"

"(Name deleted)'s buyer fell through on that house and we are next on the list. My mother wants to know if we want to put the bid in. What do you want to do?"

To the saleswoman who is now picking out socks as I call out colors between Mr. T.'s words, I say: "I'm so sorry."

"It's ok," she responds cheerfully.

"I'll call you back," I tell husband. "I'm in the store."

We hang up and I laugh my head off.

"I'm sorry," I tell the saleswoman again. "I really need to laugh about this."

"It's OK. Take your time."

After I get past the irony of this, I get my socks picked out, pay for them and leave. I call my DH back right away.

"So, the 20% down fell through huh? Suddenly we are good enough?"

What you don't know, dear readers, is that we first saw that house with the owner there. She is a friend of the family (his, not mine). I apparently said something insulting about her house and she wasn't sure I would "really go through with buying it" so she took another bid.

The insulting thing I said? We need to pull up the carpet. That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Not, "I hate her taste!" Not, "I hate her cat!" No, it was, "We need to pull up the carpets." THAT is what hurt her feelings. Can we all just join together and say - SLAP!

Deep breath, deep breath.

So, there is still a ton to this story but it would take me way too much to say it all so I will be succinct and tell you what I already knew but can reconfirm for you again today:

DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH FAMILY.

If I need to repeat that, let me know. I do not care if they are the best in the business. Get the second best if it means you work with someone who is not attached to you in any way except by business.

As I said before, my MIL is my real estate agent - I knew when I married the man that this would be the deal. I accepted it a long time ago and you should too. No lectures please.

That said, I have told Mr. T. that I do not believe she is fighting for us as she should be so I have taken matters into my own hands and I dictate. I tell Husband what I want him to do and I tell MIL what I want her to do. That is all I do. I do not want to hear excuses and reasonings. I want to know what I want to know and that is the end of it. You people want my money, you do what I ask. I cannot begin to relate the nonsense she was telling me about how I shouldn't say things in front of the owner. I say, "The owner wants money? The owner should either not be there or suck it up. I will NOT shut up." Especially since ALL I said was that the carpets needed to go. And yeah, it is a funky layout and I said that too. But it is! You should see it! Daughter by the way, said much worse. Because a cat lives there, she said, "ooooo, stinky!" Twice. And I am the insulting one?

His family already thinks I am emotional, maybe even high strung, but I've been in DH's life for 13 years. They should get over it already because I am not changing. But I am certain they think I need them to explain why we should take the deal. To DH's credit, he told her, "What?! No way! I want to see the house again."

Good boy. I have trained him well.

Why do I care and why am I dealing with this, besides the reason that MIL and her group of associates came with the marriage package? Because the mortgage would be sweet. We wouldn't be strained fiinancially. We get our space. It's a 6-year-old house and therefore not skeevy (I hope). It is in a neighborhood with people I know and like. It is 5 minutes (less than, really) from MIL's house so I still have her if I need her - for the kids' sake, of course - and Son gets to stay at his school with no strain on me in the mornings to rush him there because we moved one town away in the wrong direction. That's why I care.

So we go back tonight to see the place, sans owner, and I have told MIL we will tell her yes or no right then and there.