Dave Barry: Homes And Other Black Holes

Ha ha! Just kidding, of course. You have nothing to worry about. All the bank will ask you to do is supply the home phone number of everybody you have ever known, even casually, since the fourth grade. Then you’ll have an interview with a Loan Officer, who’ll ask you a few standard screening questions, such as: “To get this mortgage, are you willing to lick the gum wads off my shoe bottoms?”

Assuming that you come up with the correct answers (“yes”) to these questions, your mortgage application will be sent on to the Committee to Hold Up the Mortgage Applications for Several Months. This will give you time to practice signing checks in preparation for the Ritual Closing Ceremony.

This is an important and highly traditional part of the home-buying process, the last major hurdle you must clear before you become an Official Homeowner. It is comparable to the initiation ceremonies at major college fraternities, where, to prove that he is worthy of the privileges and responsibilities of membership, the pledge must perform some feat such as attending a Papal Mass wearing only a softball glove.

Essentially, what you must do, in the Ritual Closing Ceremony, is go into a small room and write large checks to total strangers. According to tradition, anybody may ask you for a check, for any amount, and you may not refuse. Once you get started handing out money, the good news will travel quickly through the real estate community via joyful shouts: “A Closing Ceremony is taking place!” Soon there will be a huge horde of people—lawyers, bankers, brokers, insurance people, termite inspectors, caterers, photographers, people you used to know in high school—crowding into the closing room and spilling out into the street. You may be forced to hurl batches of signed blank checks out the window, just to make sure that everyone is accommodated in the traditional way.

Another ritual task you must perform during the Closing Ceremony is frown with feigned comprehension at various unintelligible documents that will be placed in front of you by random individuals wearing suits:

RANDOM INDIVIDUAL: Now, as you can see, this is the Declaration of your Net Interest Accrual Payments of Debenture.

YOU (frowning): Yes.

RANDOM INDIVIDUAL: And this is the Notification of your Pro Rata Indemnities of Assumption.

YOU: Certainly.

RANDOM INDIVIDUAL: And this is the digestive system of a badger.

YOU: Of course.

Once the various officials present are satisfied that you truly wish to become a homeowner and have no checks left, they will award you a mortgage, which will spell out your new duties and obligations in standard legal terminology.

Hear ye, hear ye, everybody listen up because the MORTGAGOR, hereinafter referred to as the MORTGAGEE, has, by duly picking up this piece of paper and putting his JOHN HANCOCK thereontofore, committed himself and his family and his distant relatives and unborn children and domesticated animals body and soul to the terms and conditions of this MORTGAGE, whether these terms and conditions are actually stated right here in print on the MORTGAGE or exist only in the form of vague concepts in the minds of LAWYERS working for the BANK, to wit:

1. The money has to BE THERE on the first of the month, rain or shine.

2. If the money is not THERE, the BANK is going to get VERY ANGRY.

3. The BANK is going to want to GET EVEN.

4. The BANK is going to make SOMEBODY wish he was naked and tied down spread-eagle on an anthill with ants eating his EYEBALLS because that would be a lot more pleasant than what the BANK has in mind IF THE MONEY IS NOT THERE.

5. Specifically, the BANK is going to get a pair of NUMBER SIX KNITTING NEEDLES and heat them up to 11,000 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT, and then the BANK is going to ...

And so it continues, in technical legalistic detail. It’s really nothing to concern yourself about. The important thing is: at last you’re a homeowner. Now you can immerse yourself in the many rewarding and traditional activities that new homeowners engage in, such as trying to figure out how to make the mortgage payment and, simultaneously, not starve to death.

Pixie Cups Filled with Sugar

This easy-to-prepare meal is not only economical, but also extremely popular with children, who find it gives them that “extra energy” boost they sometimes need to stay awake for six days in a row.

Wedding Reception Feed

If you go to any major hotel or country club on a weekend, chances are you’ll find a large formal wedding reception going on, featuring serving people walking around and actually giving away teeny little sandwiches with the crust cut off. This is an excellent source of food for you, the new homeowner. You just walk in there, looking like you are a close personal friend of either the bride or the groom, and help yourself to as many trays as you feel you will need during this particular mortgage payment period. To keep people from getting suspicious, you should stop from time to time and remark aloud, in a natural tone of voice: “I am a close personal friend of the bride! Or the groom!”

This technique also works at funeral receptions (“I am very sorry that the deceased is dead!”).

But enough about food. Because before we can worry about paying for our house, we have to move into it and start finding out what’s wrong with it. My guess is, plenty.

I personally, have never given birth to a child, but I have seen it dramatized a number of times on television, and I would say that in terms of pain, childbirth does not hold a candle to moving. For one thing, childbirth has a definite end to it. The baby comes out, looking like a vaseline-smeared ferret, and the parents get to beam at it joyfully, and that is that. Whereas the average move goes on forever. You take Couple A, who just had a baby, and Couple B, who just moved their household, and if you keep track of them, you’ll find that years from now, when Couple A’s baby has grown up, left home, and started a family, Couple B will still be rooting through boxes full of wadded-up newspaper, looking for the lid to their Mr. Coffee. Also, during childbirth, when things go wrong, trained professionals give you powerful drugs. Nobody is ever this thoughtful during a move.

This is why my Number One piece of helpful advice to people who are about to move, especially for the first time, is always:

DON’T DO IT! SET FIRE TO YOUR HOUSEHOLD GOODS RIGHT NOW AND JUST WALK AWAY FROM THEM WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A BACKWARD GLANCE! THIS WILL BE EASIER, IN THE LONG RUN!

Of course you think I’m just kidding, and by the time you realize I’m not, you’ll already be in your new home, trying unsuccessfully to locate something to slash your wrists with. So we might as well get started.

First off, you need to make an important decision: Are you going to move yourself with the help of friends who have been drinking too much beer, or are you going to hire surly, incompetent professionals? The answer most likely depends on whether or not you, personally, have to pay for it. Many times, large corporations will pay for moving expenses, so you might ask them, although usually their policy is to do this only for their own employees.

The big advantage of going with professional movers, of course, is that you have somebody to complain to when you get to your new home and discover that your fine china has been reduced to Chiclet-size pieces and there is mayonnaise in the piano. Also, if it’s a full-service move, you get to watch the Packing People in action. These are moving company workers who go through your house scooping up everything they see and putting it into a box. Everything. The Packing People do not ask questions. They will cheerfully pack an entire box with used Kitty Litter, painstakingly wrapping each individual cat doot in specialized paper so it will not be damaged in shipment. Thus it is very important to keep a sharp eye on the Packing People while they are at work, so as to avoid painful tragedies. (“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JENNIFER?”)