Hanlon's Razor
Monday, August 5th, 2024 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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82F and partly cloudy this morning, on it's way up to 90F.
All the August bills are paid, and I just cancelled the AllState policy on the house.
This past weekend was the first one in, I can't remember how long, where I didn't have a crisis to worry about!
I spent Saturday just vibing... not doing much of anything. Never got into the car. But I did walk around the block, and discovered a cool little shop called, Hoof & Horn, with magic supplies and stuff, so I bought some candles, and a bell.
7 Clubs is mid-summer, and Sunday was New Moon, so I started a ritual to just... call for healing and wisdom over the next three months.
I've got a lot of trauma to process, after the long foreclosure nightmare.
But I also want to buy the house back in October, if it's possible, and for that I'll need to be very careful with my money, and really study-up on what my options are for a mortgage.
The goal is to be moving back in by Halloween... even though that's a Thursday.
But it's also the 31st of October, so if I were to close that day, I could move some stuff in that night and hang a decoration or something, I dunno.
Yesterday, Sunday, was the day I dealt with all the start of week & month stuff... got groceries, paid all the bills, did the laundry and so-forth.
It felt weird not to go over to the house to leave any food for Prowly.
He still had access to the house all weekend, but I didn't!
Today's gonna be the first day I just drive straight to work, without stopping there.
Friday wasn't that day, because I had to go back to the Title company and get my driver's license, which I'd left behind on Thursday.
I'll still drive past, though, and I'm hoping to see a dumpster in the driveway, and men working on the place.
It'll be interesting to see their progress over the weeks to come.
Life here isn't too bad.
Two of my new routines are, on Saturdays to walk for smokes at the BP on lincoln... and on all days of the week, to get outside first thing with my coffee and take a little walk.
With a place this small, it's important to get outside when I'm home... just to reassure myself that I'm not just stuck in a little studio... I have a room in a big house, on a bigger campus, with things see and do out there.
I did go across the street yesterday and found my window on the front of the building... recognizable because of the fan I mounted next to the AC.
Also recognized my window shade and blinds.
It was the first time I really appreciated how high up this flat is, from the ground.
What I saw when I drove past the house today was a big white van in the driveway, and a bunch of the furniture out on the parking, including my queen matress.
The front storm door was also propped open, though the front door itself was closed.
Then on the drive home, I saw more of the furniture out on the parking, and even more piled in the front yard near the porch, with a bunch of garbage bags.
I think that stuff is waiting for the dumpster, which I'd assume will arrive tomorrow, but we'll see.
Still, it's odd that a lot of the furniture was just put on the parking for the general public to take.
I can't tell if they've closed off the cat doors either.
So, the 10 week renovation has begun... two days, sadly, before the 2nd anniversary of my adoption of Snoop & Prowly... on the 7th of August, 2022.
It was early August of 2020... a little over a month after Mauli died, that I decided I'd get another pair of sibling cats one day, and the next time around, they'd be gray/black tabby cats.
So when I pulled into the driveway that Sunday afternoon, two years later, to see a little girl holding a gray/black tabby kitten in each hand... saying they were stray and she was looking for homes for them... how could I NOT assume it was the cosmos?
It was the fact that the cosmos had done this... had said, It's time, Pat! Time to adopt those tabby cats you were thinking about! that made me think everything was going to be okay for the next 20 years!
I mean, summer 2022 was a fairly uncertain moment!
I was unemployed and broke, and still kinda hoping my handyman business would pick up, when the economy leveled out a bit more.
The cosmos giving me Snoop & Prowly was like a sign that everything was gonna be fine, because cats are a very long term responsibility, and why would I be given them now, unless it was predestined that I'd be able to care for them until I was 72!
Indeed, it was adopting them that lead me to seek a job, and wind up with GeoStaff.
And in only two years, I've gone from a part time, elementary school janitor, making $14.00 per hour, to a full time high school maintenance guy making $22.05!
Who has ever gotten an $8.00 per hour raise in two years?
If it weren't for that balloon... I'd have had NO PROBLEM affording the house after Dad died!
Even if that ballon were just broken into payments, I'd still have had NO PROBLEM!
If the refinance had worked... again... NO PROBLEM!
What I'm saying here, is that I do think the comos honestly thought in August of 2022... that I was not going to have any problem taking care of those two cats at Melody Manor for the next twenty years!
Do you remember that theory I had last year?.. that the balloon was actually a computer glitch?
I thought that for two reasons;
- The branch banker in May of 2022 had told Dad not to worry, and that he'd have 10 years to pay off the HELOC after it hit maturity in 2023.
- In May of 2023, when the minimum monthly balance for the HELOC went from $100.00 to $13K and some change... and I hit the, "Pay" button to see what would happen... it returned, "Error! The Amount you're trying to pay is greater than the balance of the loan!"
And then last Thursday, when the rubber finally met the road, and somebody was finally prepared to pay BMO everything they were owed...
Mysteriously, they settled for 13K and some change LESS than their payout demands were asking for!
Why?
Because neither Jim, nor the title lady, nor Mr. Taylor himself was able to explain what happened!
They all acted like it was some kind of unexplainable miracle, and Mr. Taylor said, Just take the money and run! I dunno what happened! Maybe they made a mistake. But if they did, it doesn't matter, because they released their lien, so they can't do anything now. If it was a mistake, they have to take the loss. There's no recourse for them anymore.
So my theory now is that there WAS a glitch... that nobody caught, not even in discovery, because I was forced by circumstance to withdraw my defense before BMO ever complied with discovery requests.
And it was only caught last week when a bunch of lawyers and underwriters got into the proverbial smoke filled room for one final dissection of the pertinent records... and somebody at BMO realized... Oh, fuck!
Oh, Fuck!.. they DID change the terms of the loan in 2022, so that Mike Melody would have 10 years to pay off that HELOC! Oh, shit!.. we were illegally preventing his estate from paying the normal monthly payment!.. and the entire foreclosure was filed in error!
Guys, we need to... we... we need to just eat that 13K at this closing, because if we don't... we could be open to a HUGE pain & suffering lawsuit!
If this ever came to light... that we destroyed this guy's life over a computer glitch?.. he could get a million out of us! Forgive the heloc!... just forgive it!
Given that nobody can explain how BMO settled for exactly 13K less than they'd been insisting was owed... That theory, crazy as it sounds, is valid!
Stephani at the branch bank that day in May of 2022 wasn't lying to Dad... or misinformed, or incompetent!
She, and others involved in a three-week effort to resolve the matter for Dad, arrived at simply updating the contract so that this poor, old, loveable man, who'd been a loyal customer for decades, could have 10 years to pay off the HELOC... like all modern HELOCs let you do!
And their work notes would've reflected that... and reflected that this is what Dad and I were told... which would've amounted to a verbal contract.
And then, because of some IT bullshit, the change either didn't make it to the computer billing system... or a file got corrupted... or some stupid bullshit like that!
I'm picturing... the system that calculates the minimum payment is separate from the one that takes the payment, right?.. but the one that calculates got buggy and had to be reset to an earlier version... so it forgot the change to the contract, and also was calculating with an out of date algorithm.
Thus, it spit out, 13K and some change, on May 1st of 2023, but when I hit, "pay," the payment system said, What's this? This isn't right! Error! Error!
And because Dad was now DEAD, when this happened... I couldn't even get it addressed until I provided all kinds of deed documents, death certificates, etc...
And in that time, the debt went into delinquent mode... and fell off the payment system entirely... into the laps of Loss Mitigation... who had no reason to suspect a glitch, and ignored my lawyer, and brushed off my story about a branch banker telling Dad he wouldn't have to pay a balloon.
And then it just got worse and worse until I finally had to vacate, and sell the house!
Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
According to this theory, the stupidity would have been on the part of a computer!
Or the IT team, trying to fix an issue with the billing system, who didn't foresee this one specific problem... that their fix might erase recent changes made to old contracts of guys who just died!
Or something!
After that, it was all just bureaucracy... on BMO's side!
But my whole point here is that the cosmos didn't think there was gonna be any problems, back in August of 2022... because the cosmos doesn't get computers!
The cosmos gets... all the conscious and karmic thoughts and intentions of all living things within the great web of life, around the planet, and across the universe.
So it understands all the things people and cats are doing and thinking... and understood that this balloon thing was taken care of months earlier!
Because that's what Dad and I, and all the other humans involved, understood!
And the computer that would eventually fuck everything up... hadn't even fucked up yet!.. and wouldnt!.. for another year!
The virus, or corrupt file that created the fuck up wouldn't exist for another year!
And the cosmos can't see that shit!
Computers aren't alive, and all they do in the world is generate a bunch of bullshit math!
This is the difference between what I believe, and the concept of an all-knowing God.
An all-knowing God would have certainly been able to foresee that this bullshit was on the horizon and prevented it... because it would've been ridiculous!
The cosmos is not like that.
It's actually kind of like a computer on it's own level... that does respond to inputs, and can run programs... but can also be coldly blunt at times... or, when it's on your side... still has blind spots and can generate errors!
The balloon that tore my life apart... ultimately to be forgiven, after it was too late... was a computer glitch!
But over the course of this year, it has escalated into a cosmic glitch!
My financial credit score may have taken a huge hit this year... but my karmic credit score should be soaring... because I did not have any of this shit coming!
My karmic track record with Jet & Mauli... and Dad, in his last 8 years... and with the house, Yvette, and any other thing you want to look at... is goddam spotless!
And if that were not true, the cosmos wouldn't have given me Snoop & Prowly, because they were innocent and blameless kittens!
So, in the final analysis, I believe the cosmos is a bit shocked, and embarrassed by how all of this has been going down... and has been scrambling to fix it.
But the cosmos should learn from this... because... you know... the cosmos has the ability to learn...
That it needs to get a better bead on what computers are doing!
They aren't conscious, Cosmos!.. but they've gotten to the point where, networked together around the planet, they do rival you, in their ability to change the narratives of lives, for the better or worse!
And they do it with a cold, uncaring stupidity that was utterly alien to this universe, until about 10 or 20 years ago.
Okay, it's late, and I need to sign off for the night.
°¦}
