You Can't Always Get What You Want

(Aside: I wonder how many hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts have started with that same overused but apt title.)

So you've probably noticed the comics I occasionally usurp and use here on Scooter Nation--my dear friend and fellow ex-desk hostage the Cooking Junkie turned me on to Married to the Sea and Natalie Dee a while ago. It's this husband and wife team in Ohio and I have to say, I'm glad CJ pointed me in their direction because hitherto, in my opinion, the only good things to come out of Ohio were the Wright brothers and my MFA thesis adviser (not at the same time, obviously). Not only do I find some of their comics terribly apt and wickedly funny in that not-laughing-out-loud-but-will-chuckle-to-myself-all-day sort of way, but I also love their T-shirts and very much want to own several of them (note to Expat: my birthday is in April. Hint, hint).

But I am sadsadsad at the fact that I will really never be able to own or wear even if I did own (and really, what's the fun in that?) this shirt.


Our dear friend the Fabulous Public Sphere Theorist refers fondly to all musicians who pay the bills with church work--myself and her own organist husband included--as "whores for the Lord." It's true. I haven't attended a church as a member or a parishioner since I was about 17 and started getting paid to show up and sing. This doesn't cause me any spiritual angst and it hasn't yet motivated any existential crisis. But this . . . this T-shirt changes things. In all my years selling my voice to churches, I've never really felt that my wardrobe was restricted, mainly because you can wear a choir robe over anything. Yet in this incarnation of my church job, I'm not the director of an adult choir. I'm the director of children's music. Imagine, if you will, the questions from a hoard of 10-year-olds if I showed up wearing this shirt. And then imagine the hoard of parents. The phone calls. The emails. The moral outrage of suburbanites who feed their kids McDonald's on the way to soccer practice. "This is Alabama. We take God seriously here. We do not want our children exposed to cartoon people gallivanting in champagne saucers. On a Wednesday."

But beyond the simple logistics, the sad fact is, no one at my current church job except maybe my friend and boss, THE Tenor, and quite probably all the other voices for hire, would get it.

Maybe I could wear it on a Thursday.

Nation News: Really, I Just Want to Show You My Laundry Room

First, let me preface everything by saying that our house was a definite steal thanks to the abysmal housing market (thank you, W--couldn't have done it without you). We have way more space than we ever thought possible in a first home; a great lot with a wonderful yard; and very nice, quiet, largely retired and elderly neighbors who have all come by and offered to let Expat and I borrow (1) a chain saw, (2) a pressure washer with a 40 foot hose, (3) a full-sized pick-up with a cap, and the people across the street are coming by sometime next week "when it's convenient for y'all" and (4) bringing us dinner. I'm not entirely sure if this warm welcome is due more to our neighbors having naturally giving natures or if it's more relief to see that the house on the corner is inhabited once again, but either way, I'm not one to turn down a free dinner. After waiting 4 months for this house, I feel like we've earned it.

The Elderly Shyster whose house we now own went bankrupt sometime before we started negotiating a contract. The thing is, he didn't tell anybody, at least, not right away. As I hinted several months ago, we were supposed to close in December, then they asked to move it to January so we said "Sure." But then we got home from Christmas Down Under and found out that (a) they were bankrupt, (b) we were now buying from the bankruptcy court, and oh by the way, (c) someone had "found" the hidden key that the seller's real estate agent had left out for the pest inspection folks and "stolen" the washer and dryer that we were supposed to be getting as part of our contract.

I ask you, what kind of opportunity thief steals a washer and dryer? Particularly a washer and dryer from 1976? The house was still full of all their other stuff, like the antique writing desk in the front hall or the crystal in the china cabinet in the dining room. Crystal and writing desks will fit in a trunk. But a washer and dryer? That takes planning. If they were really stolen by mystery thieves, well, I'll eat Expat's Fluevogs.

Anyway. We had to wait 23 days for the case to go before the court and for the court to approve the contract. You wait 23 days because the courts have to list the property as being for sale for that long to give potential buyers the chance to scrape some cash together, etc. Mr. Bankruptcy Lawyer, who was now acting as the trustee for the Elderly Shyster's assets, assured us that these things almost always go through and could Expat and I just get dressed up and troop down to the courthouse for a few minutes during the hearing? Of course we could. Why not?

Court went well. We showed up, looked earnest and responsible when we waved to the judge, and were set to close on Valentine's Day. Turns out the Elderly Shyster actually owned lot 22 and a sliver of lot 23. Mr. Lawyer hadn't realized that the Elderly Shyster had 2 deeds--one for the house and one for this piece of land. Never mind that knowing these things is Mr. Lawyer's job: even I had to acknowledge that the Elderly Shyster must be one of the World's Most Frustrating Clients.

So where is lot 23 and what does it have to do with the house? Ah, grasshopper, lot 23 is the strip of land by the street running the entire length of our lot--where our driveway sits. What's so big about the driveway? Well, aside from being ridiculously steep, the bank wouldn't give us a loan on lot 22 until we had the deed situation with lot 23 sorted out because otherwise, technically, we would have no entrance or exit (egress) to the property, so technically we couldn't use the property, so technically they couldn't loan us the money.

I told them that technically, the house has more than the carport entrance and that technically we could just park on the lawn or the street and I promised to technically only use the front door, even for the moving truck.

My very good-natured banker just laughed and it was like I could hear the voice of that woman from Little Britain, "Computer says no."

We rescheduled the closing for the 22nd. Mr. Lawyer worked some lawyer voodoo-magic and pushed the snippet of lot 23 through in less than a week.

And this time, finally, it happened. We closed. We even got the driveway.

In celebration we spent that entire weekend and the first part of the week ripping up carpet, taking down wall paper, and slaving like mad to get the laundry room cleaned and painted in anticipation of the delivery of our brand new, bought-'em-with-reimbursement-money matching Kenmore high efficiency washer and dryer, a.k.a. the Miraculous Machines.


They came a week ago. These are the sexiest pieces of plastic and steel you've ever seen. They are so silent that even James Bond could learn a thing or two about working in stealth from them. The washer has a time-delay cycle in case I want to load it the night before and have it kick on in time to ave clean clothes in the morning. The dryer has a setting called "Hang Dry" for clothes that aren't supposed to go in the dryer. Even on the normal setting, when my clothes come out of the dryer, they aren't hot like they have always been at the laundromat, they're just dry. Forget sports cars and yachts: my washing machine can wash 12 bath towels at once in under 45 minutes. We don't even have 12 bath towels, but if we did, I would wash them. All of them. Just because I could.

So the next time you visit, we'd love to have you stay with us here in the 1970s (and really, the wall paper is getting it's very own post soon). Oh, and bring your laundry. I really don't mind.

The laundry room before, with their junk and the machines that got "stolen."

The laundery room after (ignore the vintage linoleum). Sexy, sexy!