To lighten up and also to relieve the stuffy atmosphere of the previous chapters, let’s continue my personal story again for a while, shall we?
Philomena asked for a meeting, well we met and I even got an task for that meeting = yes, like a little brat, I’m being tasked – see I’m not kidding, she still doesn’t understand what’s going on and how our roles have changed? Nor who the victim is, where the blame lies, etc. The task at hand was: „Oh, and get your papers ready for Bechyne!“ Get it right = prove to me that the cottage is really yours, or I’ll make you sell it so I can have the fucking money I kept missing with you, which I’ve now lost because the old man was an asshole too! Sure, I’m getting a little writerly, but at least give me some hyperbole since I’m still so naturalistic, okay? Thank you…
Thank God my mother’s such a prude, negative and distrustful person! Because Philomena pushed her too, and her argument at the time was that we wouldn’t invest in the cottage until it was ours. Well…my mother did indeed sign it over at the time, but only to me and by deed of gift, which is not subject to community property = hosannas!!! By the way, we sort of half-fixed the cottage – well, I did, but with my mother’s money. At least I think only the front door came out of our budget – so…I must admit that I had prepared very carefully for that meeting, because as a fool and a thirty years‘ underdog, the starting position for negotiations was somehow different, wasn’t it? At least I was clearly aware that there is a fucking mega difference if you are leaving an cheating wife, to whom you try to be as correct as possible at least within the given conditions – versus the return of an ex-wife from a failed relationship, who tries tomake you (and your son) homeless just to have everything her way! Yeah, I’m not as much of an asshole as you thought…
After a polite welcome, I had an introduction ready – I still remember it verbatim, actually: „Sorry, I’m going to be a bit awkward in my introduction, but for the sake of fairness in our arguing, you need to realize that there is no force that you can use to make me divorce you unless I want to; there is no force that you will force me to take you back because you no longer reside here; there is no force that you will force me to sell our house until we come to a mutually beneficial agreement – in short, everything is up to our agreement and the correctness and fairness of our approach! And I declare in advance that I refuse to make any hitches like I’ll stop paying the mortgage, the bailiffs will take the house and we’ll all be shit! And I refuse to talk about Bechyne, I have a deed of gift for it and it’s mine!“
And then it all went to hell. De facto we agreed on one thing, that we would have the value of the house assessed by an expert and the real estate agency would handle the eventual sale. The other details are not important for our writing – except for one phrase, which I replayed in my head several times with the incredulous feeling that I must really have made this up or dreamt it! In fact, when I made the comment that the only thing that bothers me about everything is that the one who really takes the hit and suffers is Matty – she almost snapped at me with the words: „Come on, jeez, the house will be sold, we’ll each buy a flat and Matya will have two flats after us!“ Like – what?!? A house that had a purchase estimate of two mega hundred, on which I have a mortgage of mega and a half, which has only electricity (even the water is from the well and the shit goes into the cesspool) and is in a gardening colony, in the wilderness by the forest, etc.?! That would have to be one apartment priced at about a hundred grand – do you know where such apartments are for sale? I’d buy five of them!!! 😀 God!!!
I’ll skip even the subsequent haggling on the phone, which resulted in an expert coming in to assess the actual value of the house for a „possible“ sale. I put that in quotes because that was the only really new information I picked up from the conversation between the lines – that she was starting to have doubts after all?
So, once again, my autistically obsessive pedantic preparation kicked in 😀 I was determined that if some pompous asshole showed up at my door, who was obviously fucking her on top of everything else, I would warn him that there was no legal means by which he could force me to let him onto my property…or once he started to make some kind of a fuss at me inside, I would just (even rudely) kick him out! Yeah, I’m a tough guy – in my head, anyway! 😀 Don’t be silent, asshole!
It was all the more surprising when a really old, almost old forensic expert arrived. His manner was not unlike oldtimer = we called each other by our full titles, he politely asked for everything, begged and thanked… Because, just as I expected, he needed to take pictures of everything and because they arrived late (I didn’t ask for whom :D), the light conditions didn’t allow it.
I won’t dwell on the details, but it was really fun! For example = was really carefully prepared (me too – I handed in all the papers he wanted, he said he had never experienced this before), he had several A4’s with questions so he wouldn’t forget anything – and that was the fun part. So for example one of the first questions was = what do you need the estimate for? I tried to be polite, but aloof and not respond – although, as usual, I was distracted and (glory in vain) Mr. Engineer kept trying to talk to me… After a moment of awkward silence, the woman spoke up, „We don’t know yet…“ It was the engineer who gasped for air again, etc.
The only time I was really a bit uncomfortable was in response to a sentence he uttered with his eyes already fixed on the wife (he obviously had no idea where he was, or what was going on). „No way – this is where I live!“, I said… „Jeez, jeez, of course, yes, I’ll arrange it with you then.“ 😀 Yeah, and maybe in a slightly different situation, when he started to calculate which documents he would need – he would have to go to the cadastral office at least twice, once to the building department of the town hall, etc. = „You’ll arrange it.“, I said laconically – the amazement when you find out that for the first time in your life you have to arrange something yourself was worth it! 😀
So there was nothing left to do and another appointment in better lighting conditions had to follow. Fortunately, without Philomena – not that I’m clinging to it, but I thought that (vain glory) Mr. Engineer has no idea how much shit he stepped in and I would like to inform him a little more and I really don’t want to make (or cause) any scenes in front of my dear half… interesting that I can’t even write it down anymore – I just don’t take it that way = does one really squeeze out thirty years of life that quickly? !? Hmm…
He even arrived slightly early = just an old school model and I was calmly, but still expectantly looking for an opportunity to get in touch. It took about three minutes! 😀 He says: „Don’t worry, it’s a beautiful house, it will sell amazingly!“ 😀 You can imagine what I told him, so I won’t repeat myself and focus on his reaction. No, I’m not exaggerating and this isn’t even some kind of writer’s license = Mr. Engineer (vain glory – I’d nearly forgotten :D) almost shed a tear and confessed that pretty much the same thing happened to him not long ago and that’s why he too, even at his advanced age, still has to work hard to pay back what he was robbed of… Male bonding established! 😉
Then everything went like clockwork – although I ran around vain glory like a dog, I have respect for old age and besides it was obvious that he really can’t climb the ladder to the attic alone, he probably can’t measure everything with
a tape measure etc. And this is where the real fun begins = so for example with surveying they didn’t bother before, so even if the area fits, it is „shuffled“ according to the maps, so I have the fence wrong (de jure stealing the neighboring land), but for that a piece of the road in front of the house is mine 😀 So more complications for the eventual sale – new surveying, buying the land or demolishing the fence and just payments, payments, payments… But what the hell, my old man melted down, started asking questions and reacting in a funny way. For example, when I told him about the purchase of two apartments, he did not forgive himself for answering: „Excuse me, Doctor, but she is being advised by a complete moron! She’ll be surprised…“ etc. – I just roared with laughter… And when he was about to leave, and rather devastated by what he had seen and heard – he politely asked the question in the chapter title: ‚Excuse me, Doctor, I still can’t help asking = „who cleans here for you? Do you always keep this place so neatly cleaned?!“ „I, Mr. Engineer, I do!“, I confessed 😀 „Gee, gee, Doctor, you do give me! I’ve never seen that before, I’ve never experienced that before!“ I know you don’t kick a corpse (an extremely inappropriate simile in this case), but I didn’t hold back anymore and confided how the other day (maybe it was the first time) a wife came to my house, which was already organized and, more importantly, tidy to my liking, and she couldn’t help being amazed: „What do you smell in here?“ „It’s clean, you know? Cleanliness!“, I couldn’t resist one little victory again – and then followed of course the usual reaction of Mr. Engineer: „Jejej, jejej…“, but you know 😉
I must add that he winked at me a bit mischievously and half-conspiratorially, that the client, although a lady, but if I wanted it, he would call me or send me the expert’s report by email (not before 10 days, he said :D) – I agreed = although I’m honestly a bit interested in the final number, otherwise I really don’t give a shit…
I kept my distance with the assumption that it can only be assumed that this is a supremely professional approach – once again intuition did not fail (or maybe I’m just a pessimist after my mother ;-)) = I can’t count how many weeks or even months old this latest episode (for now) of my personal story is, but definitely nothing until now = in words zero!!! So I’m waiting for contact from my wife – nothing; an email from Mr. Engineer (vain glory – maybe the simile wasn’t out of place after all, whew!) and actually waiting to find out which „even year“ to our divorce was intended…