IRONY, THY NAME IS ... WELL...IRONY, I GUESS

I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is great, but the bad news overshadows it tremendously.

The good news is that we agreed to purchase a lot and home yesterday. It's not the lot I wanted, but it's the lot that backs up to Mattie Gee's house so that we will be backyard neighbors. But it is the house I wanted and it will be the perfect, ultimate home.

The bad news?

I have three months to live.

Okay, so that's not the real bad news. But believe me, that's the first time I've felt like joking in the last 12 hours or so.

The bad news is ... with the figures that Susie has garnered, it's going to COST us a large amount of money to sell this home.

This is due to the second mortgage that she had to take out.

The second mortgage that had to pay off a certain debt.

A certain debt that was incurred when my worthless, piece of shit brother-in-law needed help before his wages were garnished.

Okay...here comes the ironic part...

Guess how much money we have to come up with to sell the home.

C'monnnnnn....guess!

Those of you who've been reading this journal for a while should automatically know how much money I need.

Say it with me.....

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SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!

So Susie's sitting there and I'm getting madder and madder as she explains this to me. Then finally, with the patience of Job, I said "So what you're saying is had we never gave that worthless piece of shit brother of yours six thousand dollars four years ago, we could move into this house with no problem?"

Yes, she said. That's pretty much what she's saying. The second mortgage was taken out to cover the loan that we took out when it became apparent that he was not going to be paying us back anytime soon.

So I got real quiet. Susie knows that's when I'm most irritated...when I don't say anything.

Finally, I said "Gimme the phone."

"You're not calling him," she said in her best stern mother voice.

"Then you are," I said. "He's had four years to pay us back and hasn't given us a dime. We can't save for Andrew's college tuition because we are having to pay for your brother's college tuition when he was given $40,000 by the military to pay for his own tuition and he BLEW IT. He spent every penny and then turned to us when the ax was about to fall, he did it behind my back and I have helped fund his fucking college education ... the one that was apparently so lame that he wound up with a job at a bank where his own bank won't give him a loan of that size because he doesn't have a pot to piss in. So fine...you call him."

And she did.

With me sitting right there.

As Susie said after the conversation, although she had mentioned him paying off this loan several times to her mother and gotten the runaround from her, this marked the first time she brought it up with him.

So she calls and he answers the phone.

She's pretty blunt with him. She said "Do you remember that loan I gave you a few years back to pay off your school?"

What does he say???

What the hell do you think this lowlife bastard says???

"What loan?"

This sonofabitch had the NERVE to say "What loan?"

The loan where we laid 60 $100 bills in the palm of your hand and God knows what you did with it but you were SUPPOSED to give it to your alma mater. THAT FUCKING LOAN, YOU WHORE.

Susie was gentle but firm with him. She said that he's owed us $7,100 (apparently, I was always misled by the exact figure, the loan was for $7,100 and we have been kind enough to incur the interest for him. We're fucking saints, don't ya know?) for his college tuition when they were threatening to garnish his wages.

Oh. THAT loan!

What does he do?

What do all irresponsible fuckers who live with their mommies do?

He handed the phone to his mother.

So Susie was nice, but explained that after balancing everything out, the least amount of money that we're going to have to owe for the mortgage loan is $6,000. If we can't pay that, then we can't move out of our house. Ever. Not until we scrimp and save six grand, which isn't as easy as it sounds.

What'd Mama say?

The same thing she always says. "We're just about ready to win the lottery or some shit. I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm going to tell you some horse shit that will pacify my baby daughter and her husband until I can finally die without paying you a dime and leave this world with a guilty as hell conscience."

Naturally, I'm paraphrasing here.

Susie was bold.

"Mother, you've been telling me that you'd pay me back for years and I haven't seen anything," she said. "We really want this house. We really want to save for Andrew's education. And we cannot do either one of these things until you and my brother pay us back."

So NOWWWWWW Mama says she "thinks" she can get a loan.

She has an American Express Blue Card. I don't know what the difference is between a blue card and a regular card. But she's going to the bank today and getting seven grand put on her American Express so that she can write us a check for $7,100 and everything will be fine.

I laughed heartily when Susie told me this. The last time I checked American Express, whatever you rang up for the month, you had to PAY at the end of the month.

If you go to dinner, it's twenty five dollars and you pay on your American Express, at the end of the month you get a bill for $25 ... due immediately.

So Susie halfway believes that her mother is somehow going to be able to give us this money back.

A really ironic part to the whole story, and I can't remember if I told you this or not this week ... but my mother and brother in law JUST bought a home themselves this past weekend that they are extremely excited about.

So they're out buying homes in better neighborhoods while we're stuck in this hellhole paying off their debts.

I'm beginning to think that the money wasn't for my brother's education after all because it's the Mama all worried about it while the brother in law "says" he completely forgot about it.

We don't want to move into this house with no money whatsoever. And I'll be damned if I'm going to scrounge up six grand to pay off my in-law's debts again.

Children ... if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...know the family of the person you're about to marry. Know them well. Because no matter what anyone says, you don't just marry your spouse, you marry their family.

In somewhat happier news...well hell...this ain't happy either.

Andrew's teething is going nuts right now.

He's got four teeth coming in right now and even though he's handling it like a trooper during the day (although he cannot stop biting on me. It alleviates the pain for him, but my gnarled hand looks like a pitbull's rawhide), he's a major bitch at night.

But hats off to my rock and my savior Lucas Mommy who told me to go searching for Hyland's Teething Tablets and mix those with an Infant's Motrin cocktail and the kid will sleep all night.

After much searching last night, when I should have just went to Walmart like she told me to, I finally found the tablets at Walmart. Bought those, some Motrin and some night time Orajel for good measure.

That kid has been sleeping for eight hours now which is practically a record for him when he's teething.

I'm a little irritated with him though because once again, he nabbed my wrist pad for the keyboard here and I couldn't find it anywhere this morning.

The little guy hides it wherever he can and chews on it periodically. It's like a comfort blanket to him. I have a feeling that it's in his room under his crib with his toys because that's where I usually find it. But that's not doing me a whole heckuva lot of good because my hands are cramping right now and I don't wanna go in there and wake him to get my wrist pad.

AND ... he finds it hysterically funny to unroll every roll of toilet paper we own and put it all in the toilet. Last night we found half a roll of toilet paper in the toilet. There was so much toilet paper that I had to reach in there and scoop it out into the trash can so the toilet wouldn't clog.

I love him and all.

But sometimes I think he got his brains from my brother-in-law instead of me.