The Closing

Close:  To obstruct.

I remember with visionary clarity a conversation I had with EdRo many years ago on the subject of money.  A large financial institution - evil by nature and definition - owed him a sum of money that was not insignificant.   They cut a check and mailed it to someone who cashed the check.  EdRo was not the someone so he objected.  So far so good, except that the large financial institution balked at correcting the error.  They thought EdRo was some kind of scam artist, I guess - they wanted him to prove that they hadn't made an error, to which EdRo politely replied: "Hey, why don't you #$!!s send me my $#!! money?"  Logical to my point of view - the bank was less impressed.

EdRo worked out his frustration with me.  He figured that the amount of money he was owed wasn't going to change the outcome of his life.  He figured the error was going to be corrected, eventually.  He figured that the $#!! large financial institution should be burned in the fiery pits of hell.  I'm making that last part up, maybe.  I think he got his money back.  I don't remember because it wasn't my money so what the hell did I care?

Funny thing happens every time I'm getting screwed, which is often.  I think about this incident.  I learned a lot watching him work through the situation, with grace and some patience.  When we bought our trailer home the title company - whatever the fuck they do  - collected the space rent for the upcoming month which they were then supposed to pay the trailer home park. Here's where it gets funny: they didn't pay the trailer home park.  They took the money but didn't pay the rent.  It's a really good business plan if you can get away with it.  The trailer home park people came to the door at the start of the month and said: "Hey, here's something funny - you didn't pay us our %$!! money which isn't a great way to get started here, you %$!! deadbeat."

I acted with outrage.  Actually, I was out having coffee so SuperK acted with outrage.  She fired off some very pointed and witty emails to the title company - the people who are basically responsible for collecting fees from us so that they can stay in business.  One of them was called "Hold for Hold for Title Transfer."  Another one was simply marked: "Padding."  I'm not making this up.  I particularly liked "Padding."  I was expecting to see one called "Kickback."  When you "close" on a house - even a trailer house - you basically stand out on a busy road and fling signed checks into traffic so that people can fill in any amount they think is good and cash the check.

Anyway it all got squared away.  But not without a lot of furious witticisms.