Closing Woes

It all started Monday.  Amy and I are closing on the house at 2.  At
10, it occurs to me that I should get my checkbook, so I leave work
even earlier than I intended and run home.  On the way back to pick
up Amy, I get a call from my realtor.  It seems the mortgage package
hasn't gotten to the lawyers yet, and do I have any additional ways
of contacting my broker.  

After a couple hours of increasing worry, during which I wondered
seriously if we'd been scammed somehow, I learned that my broker had
quit, take this job and shove it, moving to Zambia and never coming
back left on Friday before my closing.  Without making sure our
stuff was in.  Without telling anyone he was going.  Leaving us
stranded in a creek down a river without a paddle.  

It was a bad time.  The fellow who "picked up" the work, Jeff,
apparently hasn't done any of this kind of work for a while, and
did a terrible job of keeping us in the loop of what was going on.
It took subtle and not so subtle threats to get it done.  We
rescheduled closing 3 times, and the lawyers were beginning to hate
us.  The sellers had to go back to Florida and sign power of
attorney to their realtor.  Amy and I alternated not sleeping and
sleeping not.  

To compound, plenty of smaller stupid things happened, too.  The
laptop decided to fry after Amy spent a couple hours doing work on
it.  Lost.  Her senior project is suffering the red-tape blues.  And
we lost computer solitare roughly 40 times.  Sadness.

Finally, on Thursday, light began to shine again.  We closed on the
house, went home, and ate a whole pizza.  The week is over, and
painful as it was, it ended happily.  We have a house!!!!