Like an Idiot

I have started listening to podcasts on my commute.  I should probably listen to educational ones to make myself a better person, but I don't.  I choose comedy.  Two that I have been enjoying are "Topics" by Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter.  These guys are hilarious, they choose to discuss a variety of issues, or topics if you will, and are absurdly smug and over the top in pretending to be extremely intellectual.  They are so good at putting on the act that you sometimes forget that it is all a joke.  One of my favorite lines "You say that there are no grey areas, yet I see you creating grey areas left and right like someone shading in a pencil drawing!"  The other one that I have been enjoying is called "How did this get made" where a bunch of comedians discuss bad movies and the absurd plots and holes in the story. 

The problem is, this stuff is pretty hilarious and I cannot suppress a laugh or a smile, so I must look like a bit of a lunatic on the train either grinning like a moron or outright chuckling to nothing in particular! 

Another reason to be happy is that we finally sold our house!  This was the first and only house we had ever bought or sold, so it was all new to me.  Buying was a lot less stressful than selling.  I think our realtor was a bit of a snake oil salesman.  Some of the shenanigans that he employed:

1.  Every single e-mail that he sent me included his full signature, that was at least 20 lines.  A good 18 lines were dedicated to these bullshit awards that he had evidently won.  Some were really hard to interpret, like he had a four star rating.  I have no idea whether that was out of 4 or 20 stars, or who gave these ratings or what the criteria was.  Everything was cloaked in ambiguity.  In addition to his 4 star rating he was also rated a "platinum" seller.  Again, I have no idea where this falls on the precious metal scale of realtors.  Is platinum better than gold?  Is it based on the value of the metal or its conductivity?  Regardless, even if it was a 5 word reply, I had to deal with his monster of a signature.

2. There were certain e-mails that he sent me every week, canned status updates.  For whatever reason, he had programmed them so they were sent out at 2 am on a Sunday morning.  I guess the idea was that I would think he was a real go-getter and constantly working, that or a meth fiend.  The jig was up pretty quickly though because these e-mails were always sent at the exact same time and contained zero original content. 

3. He loved creating drama out of thin air.  I think he was upset that I did not use his recommended lawyer for the closing.  So, in his passive aggressive way, he would send me e-mails that implied the world was about to end because my attorney had not responded to his e-mail quickly enough.  He also loved throwing my attorney under the bus representing that she was not doing enough to move the deal forward even though this guy was getting a nice percentage of the sale price simply for setting up automated e-mails! 

4.  My personal favorite was how vehement he was that I not attend the closing.  In his typical flare for the dramatic he admonished me that he had seen so many sales fall apart because of the buyer saying stupid things at the closing.  I guess he thought I must be an idiot or have Tourette's and believed I would just blurt out absurd things like "Man that flood was a fun time"  or "Never thought I would see a house fire like that".  If I had been in the area I would have showed up at the closing just to spite him, but it wasn't worth the travel. 

The one thing that surprised me about the whole process is how attached I had become to the old girl.  Don't get me wrong, I am glad we sold her and it made no sense to keep paying the mortgage and utilities, but it feels a bit strange to know other people will be in there.  We lived in that house longer than we have lived anywhere else and it was the first home that either of the girls really knew.  I suspect that the nostalgia will fade, but probably never disappear completely.