So did we close on the house on time? Nope. That would mean financial people would:

a. get to their offices before 10:30 in the morning.
b. stop blaming everyone else for their being inefficient and actually do their jobs.
c. care about whether we close on time.

With the exception of our real estate agent, who is one of the top sellers in the area for a reason, these people are leaving me a tad … let’s say, unimpressed. You have to babysit them and hold their hands while they sit behind a shield of polite distance and cooly explain to you that it isn’t their fault something didn’t get done, it’s someone else’s fault–even though you know perfectly well that this person went on a four-day weekend or doesn’t get into the office until practically lunchtime. But because you want to have a “good working relationship,” you can’t say, “Well, maybe this would have gotten done on time if you had done your job like you’re supposed to.” No, that would insure that they would be even less likely to do their job. So you have to smile and pretend to believe them and ask sweetly do they think they could maybe, possibly, pretty-please-with-sugar make it so that you could get the keys to the house only one day after you’re supposed to instead of two days like they are now saying? And they will look at you with their frigid financial-person eyes, or smile at you in a slick salesman-like way, and explain that it’s not up to them. It depends on this person over here.

And can we talk about fees? Lately it feels like I spend my whole life telling companies not to charge me extra money for nothing. It’s not just the house–which floored me with all the ways we were getting nickled-and-dimed and hundred-dollared-and-thousand-dollared–but every bill that I’m getting lately. I have to call the credit card all the time to get some fee or incorrect charge removed (Chase–don’t go with them). I have to call my retirement account and tell them not to charge me $15 a month to give me the $100 interest a month my money earned. And so on and so forth. Every week there’s some call I have to make along these lines, and it’s not easy, either. They act like the arbitrary amounts they are charging you are your fault in order to intimidate you and get you to accept the fee, so it takes a lot of energy and stubbornness to get them to remove it. And they do remove the fees 98% of the time, but sometimes you have to resort to threats to get them to do it. It’s exhausting. And it’s made even more annoying because I have good credit! I pay my bills every month! I don’t deserve any of this crap.

But the house. My word. The house. After battling fiercely to get $5,000 in closing fees removed, zillions of other ones still cropped up. We’re talking $100 “documentation fees,” $1,300 “title insurance,” $500 “processing fees.” It’s insulting to my intelligence for them to pretend that these fees are anything other than ways to rip us off.

Because I live in a writing bubble and have built a life based on honesty, I forget that the world is like this. Everyone is playing a game where you pretend something is one thing when it’s really another, where you plead helplessness when you mean you won’t do something, where you smile in someone’s face just to get something out of them (I believe that’s called “networking”). On Tuesday, I went out with a friend to an after-hours place where business people hang out. There they were in their business casual clothes, leaning back in their chairs and talking about deals and using PR speak and laughing very loudly over their overpriced vodka drinks in a we-are-networking-right-now kind of way. I was disgusted by their bravado and falseness.

Of course, not everyone in the business world is like the above and of course, you can live an honorable, moral life and deal with money. Sill, I don’t have one iota of sympathy that the banks are losing their shirts right now from all the foreclosures. They gave loans to people who couldn’t afford a house and therefore had no business getting a loan for one. The banks did this knowingly and what’s more, they told people lies about how they would be able to afford the loans in the future, or at the very least, refinance if things get tough. (Yikes. I can only shudder at all the “fees” and “insurance” they must have tacked on these poor SOB’s mortgages–after all, the person can’t afford the loan, so why not act like you’re doing them a favor for giving them a mortgage and get an extra $20,000 for your trouble?)

So now that this has all come to its natural end, and people have ruined their credit by declaring bankruptcy and losing their homes, the banks are complaining that they are losing money. Well you know what? You bet on a horse with a broken leg, banks, so don’t whine. Maybe if you weren’t so greedy and slimy, you wouldn’t forget basic tenets of finance, like that people have to make enough money to afford the product they are buying–otherwise, they will not be able to pay for it. You should be held accountable for your actions, not given money to bail you out, but because you are so big and powerful and affect everyone else, you’ll get your way in the end. So cheer up, there are new people to cheat all the time. Why, here comes Kyle and me right now! Maybe you can charge us a $300 printing fee. Go ahead. See if we’ll go for it.

I’ll feel better when I get the keys to my house.