He Could Have Built A Whole New House Easier Than This

Nothing is ever simple where my sister the ex-mayor's wife is concerned.

We are in the throes of house-selling. Yes, we've been removing personal items from Mom's house a couple of days per week. No rush, you know, because I'm off for the summer, and she's off permanently what with retiring before me, the true older sister, which is her excuse for why everyone in the community thinks' SHE'S the older one.

The plan is to sell the house without using a realtor to suck up our inheritance. We have a buyer within the family who has been pre-approved for the moolah. Unfortunately, we did not have a price to quote him. The appraiser Farmer H hired took his own sweet time, promised a date the report would be available, then traveled to a not-so-close town without signing it. Which put us off a weekend. Then Sis did not confirm my offer to have Farmer H quote the price to the relative, with whom he works. That kerfuffle, and the fact that Sis went a day without responding to my follow-up text, put us another two days behind. By the time Buyer was informed of the price, it was Friday afternoon. That meant he had to wait until Monday to see about his loan. It was just a formality, really, because we are not haggling over the price. Blood is thicker than money.

Things went swimmingly for him, except for the fact that his loan entity needs a signed document quoting the selling price, any stipulations, and the date we want to close. They even said it could be handwritten. Just so they know the price he is quoting is the actual price we agreed to. Doesn't even need to be notarized. He just needs a paper with both signatures to carry in to their office, and they can start the loan process.

Sis left on vacation this weekend. I've been trying to reach her since Monday afternoon. Yes, I know she's on vacation. But she said all along that it would be great if we could sell to Buyer and be done with it. So...I told her I would need to get her signature, somehow, on a document. And she informed me that she was on vacation, and without a printer, but she would be glad to try and get me that signature.

Farmer H was all selfless and crap, taking his precious work time on the job and typing up a document that he believed showed all pertinent information. Of course it took me 30 minutes to re-do that document. One would suppose that it should AT THE VERY LEAST have the correct address of the property. I'll give Farmer H credit. He had two of the four numbers correct.

So...I tried to find out how Sis could get this document. The Pony Express could have delivered it more speedily than our actual process. I printed the document and had The Pony take a picture, which I saved in Windows Photo Gallery. I sent it as an attachment in an email. I told Sis that Walmart can print pictures from a phone. That she should get it printed, sign it, take a picture, and send it back to me in an email or text. Then I could print it and sign it.

OR she could just sign and date a piece of paper, take a picture, and send that to me. Because, you know, I could forge copy that onto the document and give it to Buyer. I guess Sis doesn't trust me. She said she spent two hours in The Devil's Playground, and had to buy an 8x10 of the document, sign it with a Magic Marker, and wanted to know how to send it to me.

Last night, I got a text from Sis asking if I got the picture. Nope. Only the text. Because apparently Sis has chosen the only place on Earth with no phone signal for her vacation. A text will go, but lots of data, no. As of this morning at...well...NOON...I still had not heard back from Sis, nor did I have a picture of the document.

THEN IT CAME THROUGH! It was a slideshow kind of text. I had The Pony save it in my photos, then email it to myself. Glory, glory, hallelujah! I had that document ready to print! But guess what? My ink cartridge was low. I've been shaking it for a couple of weeks now. So there was a big white line down the middle of our document. I traipsed down to my lair to shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake that cartridge. To no avail. Thank the Gummi Mary I've had a spare sitting there in the box waiting until absolutely necessary. So we opened it up, took out the clear tape thingy, removed the old cartridge from the laser printer, checked the code numbers to make sure we had the proper cartridge, and inserted it. With difficulty. It didn't want to snap into place. Finally, it did.

THE PRINTER JAMMED! It jammed each of the ten times we removed the jam and reinserted the cartridge and tried to print. I can't thank the #1 son enough for saving me $50 by ordering a generic laser cartridge. Uh huh. The numbers matched. It should have worked. But no. A tiny little hole was about a centimeter off, and the flap thing over the bar thingy had raised markings instead of recessed. Plus, a tiny portion of plastic broke off the edge, at a place where nothing is really happening.

In the midst of this hectic print job, Farmer H called to chat, because he was on his way to lunch. BEGONE, FARMER H! My secretary The Pony got rid of the caller by telling him I was in the middle of something. The we got back to re-inserting the OLD cartridge after a solid round of shaking. But still, the white line.

I HAVE ANOTHER PRINTER! Remember, the one that #1 got me from college that was being discarded, the color laser, for such a bargain? It's in the workshop, so I had forgotten about it. Yes. It worked. We got the copy. I signed it. I delivered it to Buyer around 1:45 this afternoon. He was reading it in the front yard of his mom's house in the drizzle. I wanted to scream, "BE CAREFUL, THE RAIN MIGHT RUIN IT!"

Let the record show that Buyer has taken this whole week as vacation from work so he can get this done. Now it is Thursday, and Friday is a holiday for many people and businesses. If something is wrong with that document, Buyer will be back at work before we can ever get another signed form for him.

Death makes life really hard sometimes.