Prime's House - The Conclusion

When we last left my friend, Optimus Prime, he was going on vacation, eagerly awaiting the closing of his house. In theory, the closing date was to be that Monday after he went on vacation, giving him his entire week off to move and get settled. This was a logical assumption since their contractual close date was on Monday, and it would stand to reason that everyone would work to get things done by this point, especially since their realtor was also their mortgage broker. As reasonable as it sounds, this was not to be.

Instead, like a kid waiting for that perfect girl to call, he spent a lot of his week hovering over the phone, just in case the underwriters got their act together (finally) and decided to hand over the money. He said he enjoyed his first couple days off, but by Wednesday, he was anxious because he felt like he was wasting his vacation by not being able to move.

On that Tuesday, he knew that the underwriters wanted to look at the appraisal again before they moved forward. He was informed that this "looking at the appraisal" would take 24 hours and it would be another day after that before they could close because they'd have to schedule a time for everyone to get together. I imagine by this point, the sellers were probably getting anxious as well (but don't quote me on that).

Add to this that they still didn't have a car. The plan was that they close on their house and then run to the car lot to get a car. Talk about spending some money in a week. So Wednesday had also come and gone without a house and without a car, so they'd been trapped at home thorughout half his vacation at that point.

And just to heap something else onto the pile, their plan was to wash the laundry that was drenched during the ceiling incident (read: all of it) once they moved in. Well, by now, this laundry was getting pretty rank, and they were running out of things to wear. Patience is a virtue, but I think this would have been more than I wanted to deal with. I'd've broken down and found a laundromat since their complex's laundromat was nothing to write home about...well, then again, their whole complex was nothing to write home about.

One really has to wonder about these Case and Associates people. They own a huge number of aparment complexes around here, so it would stand to reason that they're doing something right...right? I asked Prime about this, and he commented that it was their office staff. Not only are they incredibly nice, but apparently the company feels that men are the ones doing the apartment shopping as the office is staffed with women of model standards of appearance. I guess the idea is to lose the shopper in their appearance and forget about how crappy the place looks, so by the time you figure out what just happened, you're stuck in a lease.

So by Thursday here, the waves had calmed down pretty much, and my day was nearly over when at 4:59, my phone rings. I roll my eyes thinking that someone decided to wait till the last minute to call and that there was no way I was going to pick that up. That's why God made voicemail, right? So I look over at the caller ID, and it's Prime's number. Naturally, I answer it.

In probably the most excited voice I've ever heard out of him, he says they have a house. They closed at the end of the day, so they weren't going to go car shopping, but they, indeed, have a house and could finally start moving in. I'm happy for him.

Naturally, more drama was to follow, but that's to be expected in any life. So far, he had issues hooking up the hoses for the washer so they could finally do laundry. They got that worked out. And most recently, their son decided to drop five Transformer toys down an open vent on their second floor. Oh, what fun.

Oh, yes. The car. Well, Prime wanted to get together on Friday to celebrate and revealed that he had managed to procure a silver 2006 Mustang convertible as a car. The poor car got a beating in the recent hail storm, but that beating amounted to $5000 off the selling price, and since their son was acting up, it put his wife in a bit of a sour mood, which only served to entice them to knock off another $1000 to seal the deal. They are quite the happy campers at this point.

In the end, he said it all couldn't have worked out any better. You see, before he lost his job in Missouri and moved down here, he had a house and a Mustang. Since he got here, he's been in a crappy apartment with an Explorer. But now, he's back to the house and Mustang. Funny how life works.