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October 7, 2006 - Can I have a "do over"?

For me, October 7 was a perfect example of when a plan goes bad.

My day started off with a series of home viewings for my parents - they are moving from the west side of Houston to the Clear Lake side where I live. They have an offer on their house and are anxious to find a new house over here. However, they were scheduled to attend a wedding of one of my cousins in Chicago, so they enlisted our aid (my wife and I) in taking a look at some houses over the weekend. So, armed with internet listings of various features of about a half dozen townhomes and houses, off we went with the real estate agents.

Disappointment #1: the houses

Without going into detail, I need to ask: when people are trying to sell their house, what are they thinking? I realize the real estate market is becoming more of a buyers market ... which is why it makes sense for someone who is trying to sell their house to be ready at any time. This would mean cleaning up the house - it's not about you, it's about your house and the fact that you want to sell it. Examples: One homeowner answered our request to view the house in their bathing suit. Most of the houses we saw had various features that just wouldn't work for my 70's-ish parents - unnatural step ups and step downs, too much foliage in the back yards, one which obviously had a smoker in it and would need a through fumigating. I realize that not every house is built for someone in their 70's, but sheesh!

(Anyways, we spent about 4 hours spinning our wheels on the houses we saw. Oddly enough, as we were looking at one townhouse, a lady came out of the adjacent townhouse and told us that she might be selling hers. As we went on to look at the other houses, she apparently got in touch with our real estate agent's office and put hers on the market. So, we went back and briefly looked at her townhouse - it was in good condition! So I told my parents, who looked at it last week, gave her an offer, and are now in the process of closing. This, all for a townhouse that wasn't even in the market last week. Just goes to show you what can happen if you are ready and have the right product at the right time!)

Disappointment #2 - older son

So we start to get ready to go to the UH football game. I had bought a "mini-series" of tickets for the 4 of us - 3 games. We had already seen the first two (vs. Grambling and vs. Oklahoma State), and both times, the good guys won. In both instances, my older son had given us a bit of grief before the game, telling us he did not want to go - only to have a good time at the game. But today, he ABSOLUTELY did not want to go ... he "had" to do homework.

While I'm certainly sympathetic to making sure the kids do their homework, I really thought this was just an excuse. But as a result of the last minute begging and pleading and cajoling session I had with him, we started to get late to make it to the game on time. My wife (bless her), made the sacrifice of staying home, as we did not trust him to do his work on his own. She realized that my younger son and I were more tuned into the game, so she told us we should go. So after we quickly grabbed our stadium folding seats and gobbled our festive, healthy McMeals on the road :*/, off we went to UH.

Disappointment #3 - the game

So we get to the outer parking, pay $5 to the 5 Star security rental people, and pull into our slot. But since we had only made it there 10 minutes before kickoff, I made sure to hurry up to get to the Stadium (about a 10 minute walk) - and in the process, forgot the stadium folding chairs. We get to our seats, and watch the game - which UH developed a 21-0 lead to Louisiana-Lafayette, only to fold in the 4th quarter and lose, 31-28.


Can I have a "do over"?

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