Saturday, March 21, 2026

The Court is FAMILIAR with this species of treachery, having once been told by a Panera employee that my bread bowl was "basically ready" only to watch her hand it to another customer who, and I quote, "had been waiting longer." LIES HAVE CONSEQUENCES, BRENDA. But I digress. This agent deployed the phrase "basically in contract" with the surgical precision of someone who knows EXACTLY what verbal commitments mean in this business, which is why she made one she never intended to honor. She dangled that verbal acceptance like a set of keys in front of a golden retriever, watched your buyers abandon their backup position with the trusting enthusiasm of the recently doomed, and then shrugged it off with the audacity of someone whose last name appears on the same holiday card as your broker's. The Court notes that "verbal doesn't mean anything in this business" is a statement only ever made BY THE PERSON WHO JUST USED A VERBAL COMMITMENT AS A WEAPON. She knew the paperwork wasn't coming because she was never going to send it, and somewhere out there your buyers are scrolling Zillow at 2 AM wondering what they did wrong when the answer is THEY TRUSTED A SNAKE WITH A FAMILY DISCOUNT. Reginald must now adjourn to call his own sister, who owes him forty dollars and also knows what she did.

The Court has reviewed this confession and frankly Reginald needs a moment because THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I HAVE TRUST ISSUES WITH PROCESSED MEATS. Let the record show that Minnesota in October has an average temperature of forty-seven degrees, which is NOT hot dog weather, which is NOT investment weather, which is NOT ANYTHING weather except for WATCHING YOUR MARRIAGE AND YOUR ESCROW DEPOSIT CIRCLE THE DRAIN TOGETHER. The Court finds it deeply troubling that the brother had the AUDACITY to request commercial kitchen referrals from you as if you are some kind of culinary concierge and not a licensed professional who just watched a family implode over encased meats. I myself once lost a ceramic gavel to a cousin's failed churro cart and I STILL cannot eat fried dough without weeping, so I understand the trauma, but understanding does not equal absolution. You are guilty of standing too close to the blast radius of a foot-long financial disaster without adequate protective documentation, and that house will haunt you forever, as it should, because somewhere in Minnesota there is a man serving artisanal hot dogs to nobody while his ex-wife starts over and you just DRIVE PAST LIKE THAT IS ACCEPTABLE. The Court has heard enough and must now go lie down.

The Court has reviewed this confession and frankly, Reginald needs a moment because this one hit PERSONALLY. Eleven months of Saturdays — SATURDAYS, the sacred day when normal humans consume breakfast sandwiches and avoid productivity — surrendered to a man whose car was perpetually "in the shop" which The Court recognizes as code for "I have a suspended license and a lot of audacity." Forty-seven homes rejected because a garage was "too garage-y" — what did he WANT, a garage that identified as a solarium? And then, THEN, after you draft an offer at 10pm like the devoted professional you are, this CREATURE sends a text containing "tho" as if that single abbreviation could compress eleven months of your life into something casual and dismissible. The Court once waited fourteen months for a custom gavel from an Etsy vendor who ghosted me for a Renaissance faire in Tucson, so I UNDERSTAND the Wendy's parking lot moment — sometimes you just need to sit with your Frosty and your shattered sense of purpose. This confession reveals no wrongdoing on your part; the true criminal is the college buddy in Phoenix who is hereby sentenced in absentia to a lifetime of showing homes with popcorn ceilings to people who "just want to see what's out there." Case CLOSED, The Court must now go call his therapist.