And Your Pilot Today is Horseface Steve

Control:  To exercise authority over; direct; command.

There's a great scene in the movie "Saving Private Ryan" that surfaces in my mind often.  Tom Hanks' character is pinned down on the beach right after a bloody landing.  Bullets are whistling by, bombs are exploding, people are being cut to shreds, all is total chaos.  He grabs a portable radio, cranks the handle to energize the device, and starts screaming for immediate assistance from the fleet standing off shore.

"Hello?  Hello??" No response.  He looks down at the phone.  There is a short section of chord dangling from the handset, going nowhere.  He throws it on the ground in disgust and gets to work.

That's me.  That's me screaming instructions that are going nowhere.  Nobody is on the other end of the line.  That's not me, too.  That's not me getting to work.  I prefer to scream into the useless handset.  Maybe if I scream louder it will start to work.

I also like the image of a subway car that is controlled remotely.  The thing works perfectly.  Quiet, efficient, on time.  I'm the guy who climbs into the child's safety seat installed for idiots like me and starts turning the little plastic steering wheel furiously, beeping the little red horn, hurling obscenities at the other passengers.  None of the controls I'm trying to operate are connected to anything.  An unseen force, a Higher Power, is in charge and doesn't need any instructions from me.

When I'm agitated I have a posse of Go To Guys.  I was talking to Baldweenie yesterday about the house angst.  He was spending a lot of time laughing; at me, I assume.  Normally I laugh along with him.  Yesterday I failed to see the humor.

"You know, you're really starting to piss me off," I said, in all seriousness.
That got him laughing harder.  I think he actually started choking.
"Don't get mad at me because you can't accept the fact that YOU'RE NOT IN CONTROL!"

I hate these guys sometimes.

King of the Chumps

Chump:  A stupid or silly person; blockhead; fool.

Boy, would things be easier if I could predict the future.  Accurately predict the future.  I can't seem to get past that.

It's very easy for me to swing wildly between extremes.  If I sell my house now and the market goes up, then I'm a chump.  If I don't sell my house now and the market goes down then I'm a chump.  If I don't quit talking about my house and all of the problems I have not getting as much money as humanly possible out of my house then I'm going to be the King of the Chumps.  Not just a Chump of Earl like I am now.  I try to be grateful that I'm not doing this under duress.  I think this is stressful?  What must it be like for someone who has lost their job or is behind on their payments.  I'm irritated; that's stressful.

I like to assign bad motives to other people, too.  The buyers are trying to screw me.  Screw me, Horseface Steve, personally.  They are not, of course, thinking about me except to probably imagine that I'm trying to screw them.   People are trying to protect their own interests is all.

Bob Newhart had this advice for people who were all caught up in their head about something: "Stop it."

And the Survey Says!!

Find:  To happen on; come upon; meet with; discover by chance.

And so the inspection report comes back. 

This is a report that a "qualified inspector" hired by house buyers puts together to scare the shit out of everybody.  I'm assuming they always find a bunch of problems.  That's what they're being hired to do: to find problems.  I can imagine I wouldn't be too happy shelling out $500 for some guy who says: "Eh.  Looks pretty good to me." 

Interestingly enough they do a great job of finding things that might be a problem some day.  Maybe I should become a house inspector -- it sounds like a great job for an alcoholic.  I have a long storied history as a decorated Worrier and Problem Finder.  I wouldn't even go into the house.  I'd just stand on the curb and start weeping and screaming.  Maybe I'd carry around a silver cross that I'd thrust in the direction of the accursed, doomed dwelling.

"Just run away," I'd say to the buyers.  "Run as fast and as far as you can."
"That'll be $500," I'd add.

I'm a prophet, for chrissake.  That didn't take much work to get done.  I can't imagine that it's going to be harder to become certified as a house inspector than to become a certified prophet.  I have a laminated business card that says I'm a prophet. 

You can't get more official than that.

I guess I should have seen this coming.  I really am a pretty poor prophet.

Things I Wonder About . . .

What percentage of the things that we worry about individually actually happen?  It can't be more than 10%.  It's probably less than 5%.  I'm willing to lay odds that it's a fraction of 1%.  Think about it: for every 100 things that I worry about at least 90 never happen.  Those are brutal odds.  I'd never do anything if there was an almost certain probability that I would fail.

It's remarkable that I keep right on worrying.  You'd think I'd give it up after all of this time. 

Turkey Gravy

Worry:  A troubled state of mind; anxiety; distress; care; uneasiness.

Here is one of the bits of wisdom that I love to ladle out like turkey gravy: "What can you do about it right now?"  It's pretty good advice, actually; it has its origin in the world famous slogan One Day at a Time.  Alcoholics, especially new ones, are always trying to solve future problems.  It's a compelling thing to do.  We learn quickly that a lot of stuff has to work its way through The System.  Many things resolve all by themselves and with no input from us.  This doesn't mean that we always put this excellent, practical knowledge to good use, preferring to wile away hour after hour in stressful, unproductive worrying.

As a general comment apropos of nothing right now, if someone were to say that to me this morning, my reply might be structured along the following lines: "I can punch you in your #*#!! nose is what I can do."  Not polite, but clear in its intent.

When I give this advice to others, I'm on my toes.  That's some practical advice for you.

Attack of The Gas Monsters

Remediate:  (Ed. note: not a word.)

When buying real estate one of the most popular "defects" to find is the existence of radon gas in your house.  There are a million companies who will put equipment in place at no charge to you, the buyer, to detect this colorless, odorless gas that may or may not affect your health.  "They" aren't even sure your health would be affected if you sat around sucking down 100% radon gas through a sterilized network of surgical tubing connected to the kind of face mask you would wear if you were in a room full of weaponized leprosy particulate.  

Naturally the people who detect radon then "remediate" the radon.  They hook up a cheesy looking device which may or may not be connected to anything and take some "readings."  Then they spirit away the device to "interpret" the results somewhere else.  As the seller you aren't invited to attend the gala reading party.  I bet they detect the presence of radon gas.  Why wouldn't they?  It's in their best interests to find some.  I'm not in the mood to pay a thousand dollars to fix a problem that I don't care about for the peace of mind of someone who has offered me too little money for my house.

I have spent a lot of time, of course, holding furious power-driven arguments in my head with my real estate agent, the house buyers, and anyone else who can't get away from me when I'm complaining.  I'm telling them how it's going to be.  I'm countering their arguments with air-tight reasoning and iron-clad logic.  It's never a good sign when I'm arguing out loud with someone who isn't there about something that might never happen.  It's a poor use of my time.  I'm still not sure why I like to do it so much.

Super K sticks her head in my office: "Who are you yelling at in there?"
"What?" I say innocently.
She rolls her eyes: "I thought you were on the phone.  The cat isn't even in here.  At least you could pretend you're yelling at the cat."
"I like the cat," I say.  "I never yell at the cat.  The cat uses irrefutable logic on virtually every topic."

I wonder if anything will come of this.

Problems of Prosperity

I've probably mentioned that I have had my house for sale.  It's been on the market for like a hundred thousand years.  Recently we had decided that we were getting tired of having strangers gawk at our stuff and tell us that our price was "too high" or that they "didn't like radiator heat."  I'm not sure why someone who didn't like radiator heat would come and look at a house with radiator heat.  It's clearly listed as having radiator heat.  It's not like we said we had passive solar heating or a forced air convection heat pump, then surprised them with a different heating system.  Personally I wouldn't waste my time looking at a house that had a feature I didn't like.

"Yes, I'd like to test drive one of your SUVs, please."
"Certainly, sir, what type of SUV are you looking for?"
"Oh, I hate SUVs.  You couldn't give one to me."

No one said the house was priced too low. Curious.


So just when we've had enough we get an offer from someone who looked at the place once.  I can't buy a shirt without trying 87 different shirts on.  I have no clue about that kind of behavior.  That is way too adult for me.  The offer is slightly below the least amount of money we said we'd take.  The price we paid for the place was slightly above the maximum amount we said we'd pay.  Now we are waiting for the results of The Inspection, where somebody who gets paid to find problems comes through and finds problems, then charges to fix them.  It's a great system as long as you're the guy finding then fixing the problems.  It's not often great if you're the guy paying for fixing things right before you move somewhere else. 

Look, if I was going to pay to fix this stuff I would have done it when  I was still %$#!! living here.