…and sleep-deprived and really irritable, why is that the loudmouthed homo and his two female companions had to choose the seat next to me from among the hundred or so available in an large, empty waiting room?

Of course, he probably assumed I fled to the other end of the room because I was a raging bigot rather than because I just wanted him to shut the fuck up. Or to go be annoying somewhere other than five feet away from me. Or at least to use his indoor voice.

It’s nice to have free wi-fi at Giant Eagle, since there’s none at my motel. Supermarkets are a wonderful thing.

That’s what it’s been like trying to instill a sense of urgency in several of the participants in our little episode of “House Hunters”. There were stressful moments when we bought the house in Winston-Salem too, but they pale in comparison to our Pittsburgh adventure.

To start, we were pre-approved for a mortgage of three times the amount we ultimately applied for, and it still took weeks of emailing check stubs, statements, blood samples, and everything else you can name before we were finally approved. And of course, the mortgage broker blew pretty much every deadline he’d given us, leaving us hanging several times along the way as we tried to schedule around a closing we couldn’t guarantee was going to happen. It’s great that they’re giving mortgages extra scrutiny now, but that’s not an excuse for bad customer service.

And now, I can’t get anyone to cough up a finalized HUD-1 form, even though I have to pick up a certified check tomorrow morning for whatever amount will be printed at the bottom of this elusive form so that I can actually make it to Thursday’s closing. The settlement officer says she can’t really promise I’ll have it tomorrow morning. Frankly, I think it’s reasonable to expect something like this would be taken care of a little sooner than twenty-four fucking hours before closing. I’d like to be able to look over the damned thing at least for a few minutes before I’m actually seated at the table with pen in hand.

You’d think that people in the real estate industry would be anxious and practically bending over backward to make the process as painless as possible right now. You’d be wrong.

As a resident of a house with not one, but two turntables, I continue to be much amused by this trend.