The Invisible Moth

It’s been a hell of a week.

I’m going to do something I very rarely do around here, recount my personal real life adventures of the past 9 days. The reason I’m doing this is quite simple: So I don’t explode.

Because it is personal, there will be certain details I’ll change, skip over, or be deliberately vague about. But I will still be able to air my grievances (and hopefully feel better).

All right, on with it:

Although I’m not currently looking to buy real estate, I keep an eye on the local market, just in case that changes. Last Monday (the 4th), I was stunned to see a sign go up on the corner of my street. There had been a house in my neighborhood for sale, but I thought it had been bought. Did a deal fall through, or maybe a different realtor was sought? If that sign was new, which house did it mean?

(Because the sign was literally on the corner, no arrows or address, so based on its location, it could have indicated several different properties. Rather eerily, including my own.)

So, the next morning, I drove right up to the sign, collected some contact information, went to ye old internet, and figured out which house had been listed. (By the way, no, it was not mistakenly mine.)

However, it turned out it was a place that I’d decided a long time ago, if it ever went on the market, I would be interested in seeing if I had a chance at acquiring it.

The reason for this is simple: I used to live there. Only for a couple of years, and the decision to sell was out of my hands, and I was not in a position to buy at the time. No hard feelings at all. Just how things go sometimes.

The current owner (owner since that time) and I are neighbors, but we don’t personally interact. I don’t believe it’s because this person hates my guts or anything that drastic. It seems to be a combination of he appears to be pretty introverted, and so am I, and he works full-time, and my schedule is very different than a typical 9-5.

Before we go any further, let’s call him…er, hang on…ah, come on, moth, just pick a word…General Grevious.

(Yes, I know that’s from Star Wars. This all started on May the 4th. It works.)

Anyway, General Grevious and his significant other…uh, er…Cersei (yup, you can probably guess my feelings about this person)…anyway…General Grevious and Cersei had put the house on the market, and then…apparently legged it.

It was the oddest situation. No, I’m not home every single second of the day; but I never saw a moving van, delivery of storage units, or any of the usual activity surrounding such a big thing as leaving your place of residence. The closest we got was the (vague) realtor sign, a generic listing on a real estate website, and the owner suddenly not coming home that Monday night.

But…his car was still in the driveway.

And, as of late Tuesday (the 5th), no one (from the sign) had called or emailed me, so I had no concrete idea what was going on.

Then, poof, on Wednesday morning, the listing is beefed up, definitely sounding like a sales pitch. That afternoon, I picked Muffin up from school, came home, and at The Other House were a bunch of cars (parked in the street, making it difficult to get into my own driveway), and a bunch of people I didn’t recognize, and pretty soon it became clear it was indeed a property tour.

So Muffin and I got out the popcorn and found the best window to permit maximum surveillance.

Okay, I jest.

… We didn’t get popcorn.

The tour only lasted about half an hour, and when people exited the house, they didn’t seem excited, or contemplative. They seemed…confused. Their faces were very stoic, their body language stiff and self-protective (the realtor was gesturing and trying to engage them, and they were arms-crossed, stone-faced statues — not kidding).

Now insanely curious, I ran back to ye old internet, and clicked the button on the generic real estate listing, “Request a Tour.”

A third party realtor contacted me, set up a showing, and gave me some vital information: If I was interested in the property, I’d better hop to it, because they were only taking offers on the 12th.

The 12th? I double checked my calendar immediately. The 12th? As in…6 days from now?

Yes, I was told, that’s correct.

What kind of *insert your choice of swear word here* expects to sell a HOUSE in less than a week?!

Editor moth here: I will do my best to keep the tangents, the ranting, and the language in this post to a minimum. It shall not be easy.

Thursday morning was another showing. (I stayed behind a pair of curtains, I promise.) After about 20 minutes, the realtor and the possible buyers appeared in the yard, and the latter were clearly displeased. There was much expansive arm waving and raised voices. Again, the realtor tried to smooth things over; again, this was not well-received.

Thursday afternoon was showing #3. (By now I was shamelessly gawking; no regrets.) Like clockwork: short tour, storm out of house, arm waving, heated discourse with realtor.

Friday evening brought the shortest showing yet: 10 minutes, done and dusted, no thank you.

Holy bonkers, Batman.

What is going on inside that place??

Finally, the time arrived for my own tour. I walked on over, and was immediately struck by how strange the whole setup was. Not only was Grevious’ car still there (but he hadn’t been seen since Monday), but the backseat was full of boxes and bags. Trash cans and spring planters (sprouts poking out) sat on the front walkway.

We entered the house, and it hardly looked empty. It was absolutely like someone still lived there, and had just popped out for an afternoon. Furniture in all the rooms, decor arranged, a TV still mounted on the wall and plugged in. Tons of clothes in every closet I peeked into. A full row of Cersei’s skin care products on a bathroom counter. There was a used loofah in the shower stall.

I began to understand why previous tours had gone so poorly.

The crowning touch was the kitchen: When I opened the fridge to see how deep it was, I was greeted by a solid wall of food. That had been in there, left to its own devices, since Monday. Now it was Saturday.

I don’t mean a stray loaf of bread. I’m talking, bunches of leftovers, half a gallon of milk, thawed meat, fruit turning brown. It was disgusting.

I started opening cabinets; every single one I checked was crammed with dishes, utensils, cookware, dozens of bottles of spices, rolls of paper towels.

So I turned to the third party realtor and I asked, “Are they coming back for all this stuff, or what?”

And the response: “I have no idea. No one’s said anything about it.”

What. The. Everloving. Hell.

It occurred to me: This would be an excellent point to ask to see the basement.

The basement smelled musty. It was very cobwebby. (I did find something I’d wanted to look for, the remnants of chalk drawings on the cement walls, created by the children of the very first owners of the property. Flowers and hearts, and they all signed their names. Back in the 1970s. Most of it is very faded, but it’s still there. I’m so glad I remembered to check for that.)

But it was very bad that there was evidence of a leak in the basement. (And when I saw the inspection report a couple days later, I found proof of it.)

Because of the time crunch, the realtor scheduled an open house for Saturday afternoon.

It…did not go well. (Especially not for the guy who parked at our place, because there was no more space on the street, and the estranged yelled at him.)

Oh, and here’s the kicker to it all: The listing was priced at 30,000 higher than the property’s assessed value.

They did a shit presentation. The sign doesn’t make it clear it’s their address. There’s a car blocking part of the driveway. Their personal hygiene products were on full display. They didn’t even empty the fridge. Its contents are starting to rot. There’s a leak in the basement. And they want 30,000 higher than the property’s assessed value.

IN. LESS. THAN. A. WEEK.

*Screaming incoherently*

Please pardon the interruption. We will return to your regularly scheduled blog shortly.

I did put in an offer. I was very, very firm on my limit.

Then I spent all of Tuesday — the 12th — tied up in knots and forcing myself to breathe.

Then, that night, I received word my offer was most likely going to be accepted.

It felt amazing.

And then. Yesterday morning. New word came through: Grevious and Cersei would accept my offer…if I increased it, up to 40,000 above the asking price.

SCREW. THEM.

That was it. I was done, I was out. Happily, quite frankly.

Sure enough, since the 12th has come and gone, and they were no longer looking at offers, as of yesterday, I’ve seen Grevious and Cersei return to the house. There are no more showings. Everything seems back to usual over there. Lights were on inside last night. Both residents’ cars in the driveway.

As if nothing ever happened.

Of course realtors won’t tell me how many other offers there were, if other people pulled out (like I did), if others tried to fight the ridiculous price given the circumstances, and so many additional things I’m just curious about. And, yes, I understand, and do respect, client confidentiality. And technically, a lot of stuff is not my business. I get that, too.

But, since I do share a street with these folks, it would be really nice to know if there are going to be other open houses, possibly blocking my own property. If they’re going to follow through with a sale, or if they’re changing their mind and taking it off the market. If they might lower the price, and extend the deadline, and give people a fair shot.

Or if they just plan to keep being asshats.

Who I really, really wish would leave the neighborhood.

I may be about to get in a lot of trouble. Well, never really stopped me before, has it? And since some things need to be said, well…here we go.

I feel like people don’t know how to use their heads anymore.

Now’s the time to pull a Dave Barry moment, and follow up this comment with, “What I’m saying is: People are getting stupider. Just kidding! I didn’t mean that!”, when, in fact, that is exactly what he meant.

I’m not talking about lack of available information, nor the absence of resources to access it. (The internet has — seriously — become an excellent tool in that regard.) I’m referring to the apparent inability of a great amount of the human population to apply active thinking skills.

Example A: Why are so many people shitty drivers these days? They seem so focused on just following the rules they were taught in high school, so that they don’t get a ticket, that they actually cause accidents by not being able to switch gears in a sudden, unanticipated, or emergency situation that requires them temporarily suspending that mindset. The other day, I had to stop in my tracks while trying to park (and get out of the way of other traffic) because a driver had just halted their vehicle in the middle of the lot, preventing many other folks from backing out or pulling around them. No rhyme or reason to it that I could see. After I (almost frantically) yanked my steering wheel to position my car over to the edge of the lot, the other driver drove past me like nothing was wrong. Just…WHAT?!?!

The only thing I could think of was that this person was about to leave the lot when they saw me entering, and…instead of being able to think, “Oh, okay, they’re coming in from that lane, so I should go this way”…they literally just stopped. Again, actually creating the very sort of scenario that could have led to unnecessary problems.

Example B: Everybody knows I’m no fan of current BookTok trends ruining the publishing market. But there are other problems tied to the rise of books becoming a highly profitable (above all else) industry. One is that reading comprehension is at an astounding low (at least in this country). I directly blame the advertisers throwing insane amounts of cash at 20-something bimbos (yup, and you can’t change my mind) to go on camera and gush, “Omg, you guys, this book was sooo good!” The actual readers — who genuinely enjoy this hobby, and will often slam this marketing tactic, even to the point of boycotting titles mentioned in this way — are starting to be very vocal about how obvious it is influencers either don’t read those books, or did not understand them.

I’m going to pick on Haley Pham here. I really enjoy Ryan Trahan’s (her husband’s) YouTube videos, so I tried watching her book reviews. I made it through about a dozen of them before I realized…this girl has the reading comprehension ability of a squirrel. She’d often say there were plot points or character motivations she couldn’t follow in certain books (generally, anything more complex than a contemporary rom-com), but she could never explain why these nuances escaped her. When you read or watch negative reviews that concretely state, “The character seemed to change their mind halfway through, without the author giving a reason for them doing it,” or, “The plot dragged until page 200, then there were impossible twists thrown in just to make it feel exciting,” that gives confidence the reader knows how to analyze what’s on the surface of the text.

(In this instance, Haley Pham is an excellent exhibit of why she’s a bad pick to be a book influencer: It turns out she’s a high school dropout, whose aim became making it big in social media, and she never really read much for enjoyment before marrying someone with millions of subscribers and having the opportunity to build her own channel on status alone. Ahem. A-hem. The ethical issues aside, it’s pretty clear no one who truly values reading as enrichment should take any recommendations from this woman.)

Anyway, here’s why reading comprehension is so important: Whether you ever pick up a single novel in your lifetime, you will need to understand what you read in legal documents, job-related paperwork, buying a car, a house, getting an extended warranty on your toaster, EVERYTHING that you might be accountable for throughout your life that is communicated to you through writing. My child’s co-parent struggles with this skill, and it very nearly got them into very hot water at work recently, because they signed a form that should not have been signed without first obtaining legal advice. Thank God I do have knowledge in such things, and I know how to help as this situation proceeds. But, bloody hell, what a near disaster.

Example C: In November I had to have surgery. (I’m fine, by the way.) The nurse at check-in was so intent on following procedure that she weighed me with my coat, boots, and bag, still on, which meant the number on my chart was easily 10 pounds higher than my actual weight — and that meant I was probably given too much anesthesia. It took me four days to fully come out from under the effects of sedation given to last an hour in the operating room. Either wait for me to get into a hospital gown before putting me on the scale, or do some quick math to allow for the fact fabric holds weight, too.

But too many people — even professional, well-trained people — only do what the textbook says. They’re too afraid of getting in trouble to risk doing the right thing for their customer/client/patient. I felt so blessed that the first available surgeon seemed very free-thinking from the first consultation; she reminded me of the teachers that used to say, “The only ‘dumb’ question is the one you don’t ask.” I was well-informed on how the operation would be performed, what side effects were considered normal, and what would be deemed an emergency, and what I should do about that. Someone with an MD after their name needs to be thinking on their feet.

That showed itself again when the anesthesiologist came into my pre-op space; he could tell that my anxiety and my small-boned body structure was possibly going to constrict my airways, so he did away with the (usual) idea of intubation (something that was definitely concerning me, because the last time I had surgery it tore my throat up and was very painful). I simply went through this operation with someone monitoring the oxygen mask secured over my nose and mouth. Much better.

You might be thinking, well, yes, that shows someone who’s really good and practiced at their job; but does that directly tie in with intelligence?

Yes, it does. It’s because this doctor was smart enough not just in training and experience but also in terms of empathy (which is, studies strongly indicate, a learned skill, not an innate one) to figure out what I needed without me having to ask for it. That, as a patient, was invaluable.

So, if people’s IQ is affecting their EQ…what does that mean for the future of society?

And…is there any way to regain the strides in IQ, and EQ, that civilization has made in recent decades?

I can’t help thinking that technology isn’t the problem here; AI becoming the default for processing our bill payments and ordering takeout isn’t making us less compassionate.

Somehow, in the 21st century, we’ve reverted to teaching people it’s perfectly acceptable to not care about each other, to treat those you disagree with like trash, to put your plans and objectives only into making money and being seen as successful (instead of, you know, finding a cure for all those shitty diseases out there, or something).

And, I’ll stand by it, my guess is that if people were using their heads more, they’d probably end up using their hearts more, too.