Let me get this right….
Sunday 7pm: Austin helps me hang pictures next to the new bookcase that was finally (ordered two months ago) delivered Saturday. I unpack the last box (of books) from our July 2006 move to this house. The living room is complete and I’m happy with it.
Tuesday 1pm: I get to thinking that I could spend the month of July not desperately looking for a new project but finishing my first draft. The relief from this first-time freedom will last nineteen more minutes.
Tuesday 1:20pm: The owner of the house (we rent because of Austin’s tentative college plans, my future New England plans, my Mississippi house that took forever to sell last year, my new debt-free conviction, I won’t go on) calls.
“We’re having financial troubles and need to put the house on the market.”
"Uh. Uhm. Uhhhhmmm. Is there a magic rent number I could pay to be able to stay another year like we discussed? I just need one more year. We discussed that when I moved in. Son starting college, blah blah. Right? Do you remember that?"
“Yes, but we have no choice. Do you want to buy it?"
Uhhh, hell to the - "No". Did you not hear me two sentences ago?
"Well, we want you to stay while it’s up for sale, though. And it could be up for sale for a while.”
"Ummm…yea...okay." (think the boss in OfficeSpace)
Tuesday 2pm: 30 minutes of mad, madder, and the infamous Karen silent rage. I understand multiple mortgages (though these folks have four mortgages and are in their mid-fifties, which I don't understand) and hard times, but I’ve settled on irate. We just moved in 11 months ago. WTF.
We’ll be paying rent, taking care of the place, the yard. Of course you want us to stay. How nice for you! Did you plan this? This could make a girl feel used, if she thought about it for 30 more seconds.
The inconveniences. Ours, of course. You want to put a FSBO sign in the yard first to save the commissions. How many drooling agents will be knocking on the door every day? What time on weekend mornings will you start pounding on roof shingles or knocking on the door to come inside to fix this or that? You mentioned wanting to tile the kitchen floor. How nice for us. How many prospective buyers will be traipsing through the house looking at our stuff while I have to drive around the block 100 times with the dog? Will we have the joy of fumbling with lockboxes on the doors, too, if FSBO doesn't work?
You don’t know it yet, but we will, of course, be moving. I’m ridiculously private and won't be able to take it.
So, I need to polish my crystal ball to see three years into the future, find a place, sign another lease with another stranger, and move AGAIN (which causes a "moving chain reaction" to accommodate multiple transitions in the next couple of years).
I still feel like throwing up.
With a sign going in the yard “within a week”, my July isn’t mine anymore.
Freakin’ people.