Saturday, April 18, 2026

The Court has witnessed many things in its distinguished career, but NEVER has Reginald been so moved and yet so DISGUSTED by the specter of a ghost hot tub haunting a garage like some chlorinated poltergeist of filial devotion. You allowed a grown man to have a GRIEF SPIRAL over a second hot tub, a HOT TUB THAT WAS NOT EVEN IN THE DISCLOSURE DOCUMENTS, while buyers stood there watching their closing timeline evaporate like steam off the jets of a Jacuzzi that nobody asked for. And then, THEN, you had the AUDACITY to pay five hundred dollars of your own money to make everyone stop talking, which The Court finds both pathetically relatable and a CLEAR ADMISSION OF GUILT because innocent people do not PAY HUSH MONEY TO ESCAPE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SHRIMP. I myself once paid forty dollars to a man at a Denny's to stop telling me about his divorce, and I am NOT PROUD of it, but at least there was no real estate transaction at stake. The garage door opener theft is a separate felony that The Court will address in a future session because Reginald has developed a migraine thinking about that petrified shrimp bag sitting there since presumably the Reagan administration. This Court finds you guilty and orders you to never again allow a hot tub to become a vessel for unprocessed trauma on YOUR watch.

The Court has witnessed many failures in its distinguished tenure, but standing FROZEN while a neighbor wanders through a side gate and performs what can only be described as UNAUTHORIZED DIVORCE JOURNALISM is a new low for this profession. You stood there, counsel, like a lawn ornament with a license, while this man — this GATE-TRAVERSING CHAOS AGENT — systematically dismantled your showing with information you yourself did not possess, which somehow makes it WORSE. Reginald once had a neighbor who insisted on telling everyone at my open house that I had been "asked to leave" a continuing education seminar, and I HANDLED IT, I escorted that man to the property line with the dignity befitting a jurist of my stature. You, however, chose the path of the startled deer, and now your buyers have fled to another agent who presumably understands that showings are not public forums for neighborhood gossip committees. The seller's agent accuses you of orchestration when clearly you could not orchestrate a grocery list, but incompetence is not exculpatory in this Court, it is merely a different species of guilt. As established in Zillow v. The Concept of Professional Boundaries, 2019, "He who controls the gate controls the narrative, and he who controls neither controls nothing." The Court must now adjourn to have words with my own neighbor about his leaf blower schedule.

The Court has reviewed this confession and must pause to collect itself, for Reginald has seen some COWARDICE in his day but this, THIS is the sort of emotional avoidance that keeps therapists in business and first-time buyers in FINANCIAL PURGATORY. You saw those comps scattered like confetti at a divorce party and you thought, well, let us simply not mention it because they are picking out paint colors and joy is fragile. JOY IS FRAGILE? You know what else is fragile? The structural integrity of a deal when the appraisal comes in FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS under contract price, as established in the landmark case of Reality v. Your Wishful Thinking, 2019. The Court itself once failed to mention to a dinner guest that the shrimp had been sitting out for four hours because she seemed so happy, and that evening ended with an ambulance and a VERY tense Yelp review, so perhaps Reginald understands the impulse, but UNDERSTANDING IS NOT ABSOLUTION. Those Christmas cards haunt you because they SHOULD haunt you, they are annual reminders delivered via the United States Postal Service that you chose comfort over candor, and somewhere in that house, every December, your buyers address an envelope while thinking about twenty thousand dollars they did not budget for. This Court finds the deal survived but the trust did not, and that is a closing cost that never stops compounding. ORDER IN THE COURT, the Roomba has entered and Reginald must adjourn immediately as he has a personal matter involving a countertop dispute that requires his attention.