closing the deal

Last Thursday we finally got to close on our house.

Have you ever closed on a house? This was our first time and it scared me into feeling like a grown-up. I am still massaging my throbbing wrist from the mountain of paperwork we had to sign and still adjusting to saying "mortgage" instead of "rent." However, the closing was a piece of cake compared to what I had to do to get the money due at closing.

No, this isn't the story of how I was a streetwalker for a day.

This is the story of moving to a different state, trying to keep our old bank account because we like it best, not having time to get new state drivers licenses and the trouble all that causes.

*****

Our realtor tracked me down at 11:00 in the morning with the final amount we would need to have at closing--$1811.88. This amount will forever be imprinted on my brain. I said "they'll take a personal check, right?" She said "the title company won't take a personal check for any amount over $1500, so you'll have to get a cashier's check, but you don't have to get it for the whole amount." I said okay, I would figure out how to get the cashier's check and Dave and I would see her at 4:00 to close.

11:45 am--I decided to go to the bank where my friend Deana works and have her help me figure things out. We know Deana from church and she is awesome, so I knew I could count on her assistance. She told me that we would have to get the money transfered from Zions to Deana's bank, then cut a cashier's check.

11:47 am--I called Zions to have them fax a wire transfer authorization, so I could sign it and fax it back, and then they would wire the money. The nice lady from Zions said she remembered me but that she couldn't fax the wire transfer authorization because it had to be done in person. I took a deep breath and asked her what other options I had. She said I could have Deana's bank do a cash advance from my debit card and they could do the cashier's check from that.

11:55 am--I surrendered my debit card and Idaho drivers license to Deana...only to find out that I had to have a Texas drivers license in order to get a cash advance. Deana said she would have been happy to bend the rules for me but her boss wouldn't let her, because there was no way to prove we were actually good for the money.

11:59 am--I decided to take $1000 out of the ATM, dig out the $500 I always keep for emergencies, turn the whole lot over to Deana and have her cut a cashier's check with that. Blithely I tripped my way to the nearest ATM. Happily I typed in the desired amount and was told that the ATM would only let me take out $500. So I took it.

12:40 pm--I went to a different bank to get out $500 more. Only, the ATM wouldn't let me have it. And then I remembered something that had never, ever mattered before--each card has a daily withdrawl limit from any ATM that is $500. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a really nice guy from BankCardServices (praying all the while that the single battery bar would hold out on my phone), only to be told that there was no way in h**l I was getting the withdrawl limit raised. Nope. Absolutely not.

1:25 pm--I did what any desperate girl in need of $500 would do. I called Dave and tried not to wail as I told him our plight.

1:30 pm--Dave left work to come help me figure out what we were going to do.

2:00 pm--We decided we could use the $500 I had already withdrawn using my debit card, the $500 emergency cash (if anything qualifies as an emergency, this was it) and get $500 using his debit card. Then we would have enough to get the cashier's check, write a personal check for the rest and be free and clear.

2:15 pm--With the biggest stack of $20's you have EVER seen in our hands, we went to Deana for the cashier's check. The end was in sight! Only......it wasn't. Turns out we needed Texas drivers licenses to get a cashier's check, too. Deana and I looked at each other with anguish and Dave and I decided to try to get Texas drivers licenses before Deana's bank closed at 3:00.

2:20 pm--We raced home, gathered birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports, our title, registration and insurance and arrived like the Duke brothers at the DMV. Dave thrust it all at the bored woman behind the desk. She said "Babe, I can't do anything for you until you have a Texas title and Texas registration on this truck. You'll have to go to the courthouse and get registered first, babe." I really hope she didn't see the look of murderous rage that crossed my face. I had to restrain my arms from reaching across the desk and throttling her.

2:30 pm--I kicked a post as we left the DMV.

2:35 pm--We burst into the courthouse registration office and begged the nice woman to register our truck, pronto. She must have seen the anxiety on our faces because she said, kindly, "I'm so sorry, but Texas law states that if you have a truck, you have to get it weighed before we can register it. And you need to have an inspection since you're new to our county."

2:40 pm--We resign ourselves to the fact that we're not going to make it back to Deana's bank by 3:00 and Dave calls Nancy, who tells him that we could also get a money order. A Money Order! Why didn't I think of that? Gee, maybe it's because I'm a simpleton and have never dealt with a money order in my entire life.

2:45 pm--Since we had a few minutes, we decided to get the truck weighed, inspected and registered.

3:25 pm--The truck, proudly sporting Texas plates, inspection and registration stickers, pulled up in front of the post office where we were going to buy the money order. Remember, I'd never done a money order before. I threw the envelope, heavy with money, onto the counter and told the post office girl that we needed a money order for $1500. She rang me up and said "that will be fifteen oh two." I thought "fifteen dollars is a lot of money for a money order, but what do I know?" and I swiped my debit card in the beautiful little machine. Then I handed her the cash.

She said "what am I supposed to do with this?" And I said "that's for the money order." She said "then why did you swipe your card?" And I said "because you said the money order was $15.02." And she said "No, that was $1502.00." And I wanted to weep. Because our poor little bank acount, shrivelled like a raisin from money going in and out at such a rapid pace, had suffered so very many substantial withdrawls in such a very short period of time. I did not throttle the woman, I didn't even kick a post as we left. I just held on to the money order and our gargantuan pile of cash for dear life.

3:45 pm--we take a minute to visit Jed, who had spent the afternoon while his mother ran around like a crazy woman playing with some really nice ladies from the branch. I don't even think he cared that I was gone. He crawled up to Dave, gave him sweet kisses and was happy to go back and play with Miss Anna.

3:55 pm--we almost got lost trying to find the title company where we were going to close on the house. Not to worry, we found it. We signed our life away and handed over our hard-fought money order and little personal check.

Only then did it dawn on me that we could have actually just gotten a money order for $500 and written a personal check for the rest, since it would have come in under the $1500 limit the title company had.

*****

I am pleased that we decided to buy our house instead of renting. And all the crazy business we went through to get the money was definitely worth it. It reminded me that together, Dave and I can do anything.