Monday, July 27, 2009

Buying a new house

This past Christmas, I got a call from a friend of mine. "The economy is going to get really bad," he said. "You should invest in gold ... and buy some water and a bag of rice just in case. Don't tell anybody that you have rice, either." Was it really going to be that bad? Were bottled water and rice really going to be a valuable commodity? If I hoarded enough, if Jesus came back, I could be like all three magi, bringing him gold, rice, and bottled water.

His phone call did get me thinking - how much worse could the economy get? I couldn't imagine things getting much worse and my job was pretty stable, barring some unforeseen disaster, probably involving an M1 Garand rifle, someone using the term "meat puppets", and a 32 ounce slab of lime jello. Every time I turned on the television, the news shows were all playing 24 hour coverage of the housing crisis and how we had hit rock bottom. Not that I was rolling in money, but I thought, "Well, this time is as good as any other to buy a house, and if I can't aford it now, I'll never be able to afford it."Another friend gave me the name of his real estate agent (not the one suggesting I buy bottled water). I gave her a call and we set up an appointment to start looking at houses.

Because I live in the Washington, DC area, there were basically three choices: find a 200 square foot condo which was actually only 150 square feet, because it counted the parking space which you couldn't afford but they would rent to you for $1000 a month, a house in West Virginia which would be so bad except it was two hours away and I would have to live next to West Virginians, or a bank foreclosure or short sale. A bank foreclosure is when the people who live in the house can't afford to make payments on the house anymore And the bank takes control of the property and sells it off. The former owner is forced to pay the difference. A short sale is sort of a bank foreclosure that's about to happen, but hasn't quite happened yet, so the bank hasn't set a price or thrown the family who is living there out of the house. That means that as a potential buyer, you have the great fortune of meeting the people you are about to evict.

I sort of had a feeling about what the experience was going to be like when I met my real estate agent Christine at the first house we were scheduled to visit. Within walking distance of my house, I decided to meet her there on foot. About halfway there, the skies opened up and it started to our. Luckily, I had actually looked at the forecast, a rare occurrence for me, and brought my black women's umbrella. (When I bought it at CVS, it showed up on the cash register as a woman's umbrella. Given that it was black, I assumed it was unisex. I made a comment about this to the CVS clerk who did not appreciate the irony. Since then I have always been somewhat self conscious of my umbrella, but not enough to replace it with a black men's umbrella). As I waked toward the house, I realized I was not alone. About twenty other people had parked cars within walking distance and were headed to the same house. I saw a pregnant woman I assumed was Christine sitting in her car. (i had been told that she was pregnant, so unless pregnant women had decided to stalk this hispanic family that was about to be evicted from their house, I assumed it was her. ) She motioned for me to approach her. I walked up to the car. "get in," she said. At this point, I really hoped it was Christine. Either that or I was really good at picking up beautiful forty year old pregnant women outside of short sale houses.

"The other real estate agent told me that it was okay to show the house today, but it 's pretty apparent that they are having their Easter party a day early." Now I really felt bad. Not only was I assisting in evicting them from their house, but I was doing it on their day of celebrating Jesus, and I hadn't brought any gold, rice, or bottled water. "Let's skip this one and go to the next one," I said.

The next house said that it had some slight mold damage. "That happens when the basement floods," Christine said. "After the bank takes over the property, they shut off the power to the sump pump and the basement floods." We waked in the house and encountered a musty smell. The smell continued to get stronger until we reached the basement stairs. We walked down to the basement and turned on the light. The basement had indeed flooded. There was so much mold damage that large chunks of drywall had fallen off the wall. I felt my lungs getting furrier from the mold with each breath. We quickly exited. "That one's selling for $265,000," Christine said. I have no idea how they ever expect to get that."

For the next four weeks, Christine and I would meet on Tuesdays and look at houses. Some were okay, but there was a reason that most houses were selling for $250,000 or under in DC. Among my favorites were: the condemned house that had a note to anyone entering the house written by the tenant in Spanish about how he had lost his love and now the house and because of the creepiness of the note, the house should now be considered for a new Wes Craven horror movie; the house where a family was placing mysterious substances in vials and stopped cold wen we walked in (I'm sure it was all perfectly legal) and one of the little girl's bedrooms was completely black from all of the mold growing on it; and the house with strange built in stalker areas (little alcoves in the bathroom) having apparently no function whatsoever other than to precipitate a horrendous crime.

None of them went through. Either I was outbid or the offers just sat on the desk of some banker somewhere who was waiting to concerned with receiving his AIG sized bonus to actually process any paperwork. Each offer required me to sign a sixty page contract that stated that I knew lead paint was bad for me and I knew that the house didn't come with a microwave. After the fifth time, one of my offers was finally accepted - a five bedroom, two bathroom house that sold for $450,000 three years ago. Even though my offer was only $255,000 and lower than the other bids, the bank liked mine the best because I had sent them more financial information than anyone else. I actually owned a house (pending the home inspection). Now all I needed was for the house to pass the inspection and I could begin stockpiling my rice and bottled water.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Jury Duty

Well, today I had jury duty. For those of you who have never had jury duty, the county sends you a piece of paper saying that you have to come on a certain date, etc. to which you reply that you can't make it. They then find another day in the middle of summer when you're on vacation and you have to move your whole life around to show up at 8:15 in the morning.

When I walked in, the security guard looked at me and said, "Put your keys and cell phone on the X-ray machine!" I started looking for a bucket to put them in so they wouldn't fall into some unseen part of this multimillion dollar machine. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my keys, cell phone, and change to place in the bucket, tray, or whatever it is that was supposed to keep everything from falling into this machine that probably cost every local taxpayer over five hundred and seventy two dollars. "Um, where is the bucket?" I timidly inquired. "There's no bucket!" He barked. I accidentally dropped some coins on the conveyor belt. They started too move toward the machine, presumably about to break some of the expensive components inside. "Sir! DO NOT PUT YOUR MONEY THROUGH THE MACHINE!" the officer snapped. "I know," I said. "I was looking for the bucket and..." "SIR! I TOLD YOU THERE WAS NO BUCKET!"

I slowly felt myself moving up America's most wanted list. If I dropped any more coins, more than likely it would result in a felony. At the very least, I would be in contempt of court and spend the night in jail with all of the local rapist, murderers, and other people who dropped change onto the metal detector conveyor belt.

Finally, I was able to retrieve my change and put my keys and phone through the machine. Miraculously, they were not bombs and I merely returned to being an annoyance instead of a threat to national security. "Where do I go?" I asked, but he was done paying attention to me. The sixty year old Jewish woman behind me hadn't taken her keys and phone out of her purse and put them all on the conveyor belt separately. One more deviation from the rules, and Michael Vick's empty cell would soon be filled.

After making it through the hallways, I found the jury room. For those of you who haven't ever served on jury duty, I encourage you to watch the movie "Red Dawn" from the 1980s, particularly the scene where they are making people sit in an indoctrination camp watching government propaganda together, but unlike the movie Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen don't crash through the camp with machine guns screaming, "WOLVERINES!" For those of you who are unfortunate enough to have seen Red Dawn, imagine you are in that camp WATCHING Red Dawn, and that's more or less what it's like.

Instead of propaganda films or Red Dawn, the court clerks play a government film from 1980 about what it's like to be a juror and how United States has the greatest judicial system in the world. They then switched on the coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral and I reflected on why everyone was mourning the loss of this 1980's icon, but noone mourned the loss of the guy that made this corporate video. Things were a little better in the world. Charlies Sheen may bust in the room with a machine gun yet.

After about ten minutes, one of the county workers walked up to the front of the room. She began calling out juror numbers. I'm 922, I thought. That's too high. I'm never going to be called. "922," the woman said, and off I went to the court room.

We were led into the court room and each given a golf pencil followed by a ten page questionnaire. On the paper were questions like "Is there any reason you can't serve the amount of time required by this case?; Have you ever had an injury to your back?; and Do you know any of the people who are going to testify in this case?." I looked at the clock. It was 9:30.

"We started filling the jury for this case yesterday so we're down to the last two jurors," the judge said. "The case is a civil case - an auto accident. All you are doing is deciding the amount of damages. The case is probably going to run through Friday." I looked around. There were forty other people. I thought my chances were pretty good.

I quickly scanned the questionnaire for possible ways to get out of this case. I have to be at a work meeting on Thursday, I thought. I think there should be limit placed on damages given to plaintiffs. The court reporter called the first person.

"Tell us a little about yourself" the judge said after she took the stand. "What do you mean?," she said. "You know - your educational background, your job, your family, your favorite TV show, and what the bumper sticker on your car says." I wondered if I had wandered into a game show for jury contestants. Where was Judge Judy? The woman gave her answers. She obviously was adversarial to the judge. He looked at her. "Ma'am, you can be excused. Please return your pencil and place the questionnaire on the table on your way out." Our tax dollars at work. Spending money on a seven page questionnaire noone will ever read, but harassing jurors over a golf pencil.

The next person took the stand. They had a back condition. The next one had lost a similar case. The next one was a police officer. Each time the plaintiff's lawyer asked that they be removed. The process was repeated over and over. "Tell me about yourself," the Judge would say. I began to feel sorry for him. He must b pretty lonely. Maybe this is his answer to eHarmony. He was just waiting to say, "You have a bumper sicker that says Carcasonne RULES? Me too!!" I looked over the jury pool, it was getting pretty small. We were at twenty and it was 11;30. After a ten minute recess, one of the other potential jurors sat in the box. "I can't be on the jury. I'm in a community theater and we have a matinee performance tomorrow." "Okay," the judge said. "I'll excuse you." Suddenly, I wasn't worried about my excuse anymore.

After an hour more of questioning, the two lawyers and judge found two more people they thought were acceptable. They sent us back down to the jury room where they dismissed us for lunch. After having a mystery hot dog and fruit punch from a street vendor, I went back to the jury room. This time I was ready for the metal detector.

The Michael Jackson memorial was in full swing. Jennifer Hudson was singing the theme to "Free Willy" surrounded by a group of backup dancers who held hands and skipped around her in a circle like she was part of a ritual sacrifice. At the end of her performance (which I thought was just mediocre), five or six of the jurors still in the room clapped. Who are they clapping for? I thought. I considered saying "Thank you. I'm glad you're all willing to admit Michael Jackson stole that song from me." I decided against it because a. there was no use getting into an argument with anyone who would clap for a television, b. I didn't want to claim ownership of that bad performance, and c. sarcasm was probably not the best choice for a response to their action.

Time seemed to drag on and on. Queen Latifah spoke, then John Mayer performed, followed by Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson, then Brooke Shields. Jermaine Jackson sang "Smile" by Charlie Chaplin. I was now starting to get sucked in. Who would they bring out next? Phyllis Diller? Emmanuel Lewis? The severed head of Walt Disney? One of the county clerks walked up to the front of the room. "The cases have all been filled for today. You can go home."

I was a bit disappointed that there was no free coffee, doughnuts, or bumper stickers. (Considering how much the judge was talking about them, I was expecting at least that.) I bought some on the way home, though,(doughnuts, not bumper stickers) and turned on the news. Michael Jackson was still dead and they weren't looking for anyone who almost broke a metal detector. Safe for another day.

About me (well sort of...)

I posted this on a website in the about me section yesterday...

I just thought that I'd preface this by saying that I'm writing this on National Fried Chicken Day, not that I'm a fan of fried chicken. I'm not particularly opposed to it either, but I didn't realize there was a National Fried Chicken Day until yesterday. It sort of made me wonder what other kinds of holidays I'm missing out on and how much time some congressman wasted making sure that National Fried Chicken Day was passed into law.

Anyway, I'm not really sure how to summarize myself. I sort of now feel like I went down this path about fried chicken and now I don't know how to get out of it. I sort of wish I didn't start my intro about me this way. Now you don't really know anything about me (or fried chicken for that matter). All you know is that I wrote this on National Fried Chicken Day. I haven't even said what day I'm writing this, so I'm not even providing you with any valuable information. Now I'm just sort of wasting your time. Sorry. I'll stop.