WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE FOR FATHER'S DAY, UNCLE BOB? UMMM...MY NEIGHBOR KILLED?!?

My Gawd...let's get started here and see if I can remember everything in its proper prospective.

First off...HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all my fellow fathers out there!!

I sent my Dad a case of his favorite potato chips...it's a very little known brand made in Farmington, Illinois. I know...it doesn't sound like much, but my Dad has everything he could possibly want and has always been a very tough guy to buy for, so I usually give him something unique and different when it comes time to buy him gifts each year.

One year, I bought him a slew of magic tricks. I'm not talking about the crap you buy for a buck. These things cost a pretty penny, Junior. I'd love to have them all now to astound and amaze my friends. I guess I need to ask him what he did with them and then steal them when he's not looking.

Anyway...Happy Pop's Day. I asked for the latest U2 DVD, but my wife said she already got me something.

Ugh.

I love my wife more than life itself...but she is the absolute WORST at picking out gifts that she thinks I'd like.

One year...for my birthday...I swear to GOD....she bought me a belt.

A belt.

Read it again...a belt.

Not a fancy schmancy belt, if there is such a thing as a Fancy Schmancy Belt.

A regular old belt.

If I recall, we weren't married when she bought me that belt. I guess I should have seen that as some sort of warning sign and went running as far away from her as possible. But she was blonde with big boobs and a slim waist and dammit...I was one superficial horn dog back then.

The best thing about that belt was, it has provided me with a running joke for 16 years. Every time a situation pops up where she's going to have to buy me a gift, I tell her that my belts are all in fine condition and I don't need any new ones.

BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!

Man!

Do we laugh at that one!!

I'm chuckling just thinking about it!!

Bwahaha!

Ha!

Ehhhhh....

Soooooooooo....the house.

Lemme see if I can get all this straight.

First off, I'm going to tell you how much we're selling the house for. I feel kinda strange because I'm sure at least a few of you must think Uncle Bob lives in a giant mansion with a waterfall for a shower and several dozen Geisha girls hanging around feeding me grapes and massaging my feet and cleaning my dog's ass with Q-tips.

I don't.

For the first time ever....here's my house.

We had it on the market for $79,999.

That's cheap to tons of you. But land in Alabama is very cheap...the cost of living in Alabama is very cheap. This same house would probably go for $100,000 more in other cities.

So ... we're selling for 79,999.

The lady offered us 70,000.

THAT'S an insult. We expected a low ball figure...but 10,000 less is an insult. That's like saying "Your mother is soooo fat...here's 70 grand for your house."

We looked at our figures and because God told me to work with her...we found out that we could drop the price $2,000 and walk away without a penny.

So we countered with 77,999.

Kelly, our realtor, said she had a good feeling about this counter offer and the lady should accept it.

That took place Thursday night.

On Friday, Kelly called my wife and said that she had found out the woman was only approved for a loan of $72,000.

Why in God's name was this woman looking at $80,000 homes if she KNEW she could only buy a house for $72,000???

This burned my ass. I wanted to call the woman's realtor and chew her out and tell her to quit filling her client's head with pipe dreams. But her realtor is kinda cute. And has big boobs and a slim waist. And dammit...I just get all tongue-tied when I start talking to chicks like that.

Kelly told us that both realtors were scrambling to see if they could help the woman get more money or get a better loan offer.

She had until noon yesterday to accept our offer.

At 11:55 a.m. yesterday, Kelly calls.

She has countered our 78,000 offer with 73,500.

I laughed and said no. I told Kelly to end all negotiations with this woman who clearly wanted us to take a beating on this house.

Kelly asked if I was sure. She then told me to go over all my figures and see if there was any way we could make this work.

I said fine and that we would try.

Hung up the phone and Susie and I sat down with our figures.

My wife is incredibly bright. She truly is. I'm smart...but she's intelligent. Which is a fancy word for smart.

After juggling the figures, she figured out that if we sold the house at 78,000, we wouldn't be walking away empty handed...we'd actually make 3,000 off the deal.

So technically, if we dropped it to 75,000 we'd walk away without a penny.

Then...God spoke to me.

"If we sold the house to her at 73,500," God said out of my mouth, using my voice. "We could move into an apartment for three months and save $400 a month. That's $1,200. If we move into an apartment, we no longer have to board Maggie. That's $100 a month for three months equaling $300. $300 plus $1,200 equals $1,500 we would save by selling the house and moving into an apartment."

"Yeah?" Susie said.

"Take $1,500 off of $75,000."

"$73,500," she said.

"Yep," I said.

"Yep," she said.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Tell me," she said. "Do you REALLY think your Diaryland friends are going to want to read an entry all about us doing math problems at the dinner table?"

Okay...she didn't really say that and I realize that I've alienated about 90% of you today and I'm sorry for that. But dammit...this is MY diary, talking about MY life and the only purpose it should truly serve is a documentation about my day-by-day life for me to reference in future years. NOT as your source of entertainment.

Anyway...Kelly called back to see if we had juggled our figures.

I told her we had and then I proudly said "It looks like you've sold another house."

Kelly got quiet.

NOWWWWW Kelly doesn't WANT to sell the house for that low of a price.

She says that this woman is getting a HELL of a deal with us taking $6,500 off the price for her.

Kelly started saying "We're selling the house AS IS."

I said that's fine because frankly...we don't have the money now to fix anything.

Kelly kept saying we shouldn't do this. We should play the game a bit more.

I reminded Kelly that God had told me that this is the woman for the house, that we have to "work with her" to make sure she could get this house and if that meant that we walk out of the house without a penny in our pockets, that's God's plan.

"Don't give me that 'God talks to me' crap!" she barked.

Hmmmm...so much for our little realtor being a big believer in the power of God as a real estate agent's best friend.

I told her that's what we've decided and to tell the woman we will accept her offer. That we will work furiously every night to get all of our stuff boxed up and out of here by June 29th which is two weeks from yesterday.

And most importantly...to tell this woman that the only reason we're meeting her incredibly high demands is because God told me to do it. To give this woman a fighting chance at making something of herself. To give her her first home and to take care of this home and have pride in it and to give her son a good home that he can grow in.

Kelly hung up the phone, completely bewildered.

I hung up completely satisfied. God will provide for us in our time of need.

As long as everyone does the right thing.

And I have done the right thing.

Just like God told me to do.

So anyway...the girl has until today at noon to say that she will meet her own demands and agree to buy the house "as is".

Ugly old stove...it's hers.

Ten-year-old carpet...it's hers.

The roof that Nosy Assed Neighbor thinks needs replaced...it's hers.

AUGH!!

Speaking of NAN...oh boy....

Last night, Susie went to the grocery store and Andrew and I went out in the backyard to play.

Who comes out, but NAN.

I tell her that we've probably sold the house.

She says "Why would that girl want YOUR house?"

I froze. I could not BELIEVE the complete lack of tact in this woman.

I told her that our house is not without its charms. We do have a huge workshop/cottage in the backyard. A nice fireplace and huge bookcase in the den.

THEN...I got ballsy.

I told her that our house would sell quicker than hers would.

This freaked her out. Because she takes great care of her house.

I explained to her that the type of people that are now buying homes in our neighborhood don't care about how immaculate your house is. They just want a place to crash and throw parties. I told her that her house is too "pristine" for the neighborhood and that in five years, our neighborhood would be a Full. Fledged. GHETTO.

Man.

Did that get under her skin like some science fiction bug!

She said her house would sell quickly. Very quickly. Then she asked me what we sold our house for. I told her $73,500 and that since we sold it for so low...when she tries to sell her house for $80 or 85,000 it would make it very tough on her.

She said that she was going to list her house for $95,000.

...And I LAUGHED in her face.

I told her good luck but the people moving into the neighborhood now can't even afford $73,500. They're scraping to meet that price. Then, if they're lucky enough to afford that, they're bringing their 20 year-old cars with busted out windshields, parking them in the street and just leaving them there to sell crack out of. They're spray painting words like "Bitch" and "Whore" on the front of homes that house women who won't sleep with them when they demand it. (It's true...happened four houses down from me)

The truth is...her house is in great shape for its age...but it has this old white lady feel to it. It has knick-knacks carefully arranged throughout the house like thimbles and tourist crap.

Plus, it's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home. Nobody buys those anymore in this neighborhood.

She's going to have to come down AT LEAST 20,000 dollars in order to sell her home.

And that scares the living shit out of her. She has taken such good care of her house, and when she puts it on the market in the next year, she's not going to get another elderly white woman looking for a quiet home to die alone in.

She's going to get crackheads who'll bust her head wide open when she tells them she wants $95,000 for it.

She then said a number of things bad about our house and how we never built on to it and that's why we had to settle for such a low figure.

I told her that I didn't care. And that the most important thing was that we were getting away from this neighborhood before gang wars started erupting in the streets.

So she decided to tell me that we wouldn't be happy in our new neighborhood.

I LAUGHED AT HER.

I asked her if she had even BEEN in our new neighborhood and she said she hadn't.

I told her that our new home was twice the size of this home...that it is in a MUCH nicer neighborhood with much nicer people.

...She said we'd never be happy wherever we moved.

The negativity that this woman exudes overwhelms me. I am often standing there with my mouth agape wondering where in the hell she gets off saying the shit she says. Granted, she's been divorced for 20 years and it's obvious why. No man could put up with her negative outlook day in and day out. All she has are her dogs and her mother who's got one foot in the grave. She doesn't have a boyfriend, children or any other neighbors who will give her the time of day. She sits in her house all day until we come outside then runs outside to try and be nice but that lasts for about one word out of her freakin' mouth.

At that point, Susie drove up and I excused myself to go help with the groceries, before I reached over the fence and scraped her eyes out of the sockets for being such a rude, nasty bitch.

I've lived next door to this woman for 13 years. She has gotten under my skin for 13 years and I've always been a gentleman and bit my tongue.

Last night, although I was friendly and smiling when I talked to her, I started to be more honest with her.

I'm thinking that the day we move out, I'm going to open up both barrels on her and tell her what I really want to tell her.

Oh!

She said that she's thinking of putting up a privacy fence all around her back yard because she "doesn't want that new little boy messing around in my back yard with my dogs."

The kid is FOUR YEARS OLD.

She said she's either going to put up a privacy fence or tell the mother as soon as they move in to keep her son away from her dogs and to not throw anything like a ball over the fence because her dogs will destroy it.

Yep. She's our friendly neighborhood Welcome Wagon.

The truth is, she's an old racist who still remembers the days when blacks and whites had to drink from separate water fountains in this town and were forced to ride in separate parts of the bus and she still wants it that way.

And now that a black mother and her son are moving in next door, she's freaking the hell out.

All I know is that I'm through dealing with her.

...If this woman would just call us and accept this final offer on the house.

Now if you'll excuse me...I'm going to go stare at my telephone for a while.