Cable TV and Real Estate Frivolity

When I was a child, we had no cable TV and Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet.  When I was sick and stayed home from school, the kind of sick where you're too sick for school but not sick enough for hospital, I watched TV.  Being a child, I couldn't follow the thread of soap operas.  Which meant that my sick-day-TV options were 1) nothing, or 2) game shows.  I opted for game shows far too often.  Game shows seem to prefer contestants who look like Midwestern housewives, but act like they are high on ecstasy and speed.  They grasp hosts in bear hugs and smile at the audience and yell at the machines.  It's like Vegas without hookers and desperation.  Children need cable TV so they have an option 3) anything else.

As I try to close on a house, I eagerly await status updates from people like mortgage reps, utility companies, and real estate agents.  At times, I refresh my e-mail many times a day.  On critical days (today is a critical day), I refresh my e-mail every 30 seconds or so.  This results in much time spent watching the e-mail in-box for changes.  The changes don't appear.  In my mind, as I see the Send/Receive Progress box vanish with no new e-mails, I hear the "wah-wah" sound of old game shows.  After several failed draws, I refresh again, ever hopeful, and my mind shouts, "come on! big money! approved! cheap rate buy-down!"  Come on, people, my house awaits!

I will not divulge details of my house hunt-catch just yet; but it is awesome.  If it were a game show prize, it would require two scantily-clad models to flail their arms at its awesomeness.  Maybe 3.  Remember the show with the doors, and the bad prize would sometimes be where they'd open the door and a donkey would walk out?  This house could totally have a donkey walk out a door, and it would still be awesome.  Awesomer.

 

I thought that relocation was going to be awesome:

Then I found out that relo couldn't find temporary housing, scrambled to find a hotel, was stuck in a hotel for months, and discovered that the frequent police visits are not security patrols, but meth-freak-out transporters:

This is me about to close on housing awesomeness:



There are just a few more steps, and then we move in and sleep on the floor, because the movers need 10 days to schedule our delivery (10 days of storage payments, of course).  I have done my part.  Now I must wait for others to do their stuff.  So I refresh my e-mail, in hopes that each will reward me with confirmation that they have done their part.

And I get a new message!  Eureka!  This might be it!

But, no, it's just a status update from LinkedIn.