Big Mike: Love Seals The Deal

August 24th, 2009

The Loved One called me with the great and good news last night at about ten o’clock.

Me (groggy voice): “Hullo?”

TLO (giddy as a schoolgirl on the last day of June): “Blah blah blah blah!”

Me (voice microscopically less groggy): “‘Kay.”

TLO: “Aren’t you happy?”

Me: “Yes.”

With that, we bid each other adieu and I slipped back into a well-deserved coma.

Funny how some climaxes are, well, anti-climactic. Finally, at last, hallelujah, a nice young couple has agreed to terms to purchase our Louisville home. That was the whole of The Loved One’s call (with the blah blah blahs translated.) It’s been almost six months since we put the manor on the market. No exaggeration, we hadn’t gotten a single offer in all that time — until the Wednesday before last.

We’ve got a gorgeous home in a great neighborhood in the preferred East End of Metro Louisville. We’ve sunk a ton of dough into the place and have kept it up well. We’re surrounded by lovely, mature trees — sugar maples, pin oaks, southern pines, crabapples and, of course, magnolias. Our lawn is rich with rye, timothy and clover. You don’t even need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning — our cardinals, mockingbirds, red-bellied woodpeckers, bluebirds, and Carolina chickadees handle that task.

We offered our home at a steal of a price — only a tad more than we’d stolen the place for a little over two years ago. We’ve had dozens of people walk through, commenting on how clean and attractive it is. Yet no one thought to whip out the checkbook — again, until that Wednesday.

The whole process started to wear on us. To refresh, The Loved One took a neat new job in Bloomington, Indiana, last winter and has been living there during the workweek ever since. She usually shoves off late Sunday afternoon and comes home Friday night, exhausted and often cranky. We have all of 44 hours or so to squeeze in chitchat, meals, laundry, walks, mutual refreshment (thanks, Mark Twain), foot-rubbing, back-scratching, arguing, bill-paying and all the other hobbies most couples have the luxury to spread out over a week’s time.

We’re both spent. The stress of the whole sale process and our enforced separation reached a peak two weeks ago yesterday, right before the nice young couple was scheduled to see the house for the first time. We spent that morning tidying up the place, glancing at each other through slitted eyes, snapping at each other, occasionally refusing to speak to one another. I’m surprised rolling pins and dishes hadn’t gone airborne. Oaths were uttered. Accusations leveled. The winds of war whipped us from chore to chore. At one point, each thought the other had decided to pack it all in.

After the nice young couple left, we squeezed in a speed reconciliation before The Loved One had to shove off for Bloomington yet again.

Yesterday afternoon, The Loved One confessed she worried I didn’t like her anymore. I replied that I certainly did, at least 90 percent of the time.

TLO: “Not always?”

Me: “No, not always. And I know you don’t like me every second of the day either. But 90 percent is damned good. In fact, most couples would be envious of us.”

TLO: “You’re right. You were no prize that Sunday.”

Me: “See? We’re still here, though, aren’t we? Look at it this way — we’ve been through all this shit for half a year now and we haven’t killed each other yet!”

We were chatting in front of the home where she’s renting a room. We’d spent the entire afternoon looking at homes in Bloomington. As I mentioned, that nice young couple had made an offer three days after seeing the place. We’d been lobbing counteroffers at each other ever since. Suddenly, the couple fell silent — by the end of the afternoon, we hadn’t heard back from them. Uh oh. The Loved One tried to pretend otherwise but I knew she was sorely disappointed. I made the long drive home to Louisville, propping my eyelids open with toothpicks. I collapsed on the recliner and was snoring within ten minutes of arriving home.

Luckily, The Loved One checked her email before hitting the hay. Our real estate agent had sent us the great and good news — we had a deal! Naturally, she called me immediately.

I feel awfully bad for not summoning the energy to whoop it up. I know The Loved One wanted to. I figured it could wait until this morning.

I hope The Loved One understands. I am, after all, no prize every second of the day.