Saturday, May 2, 2026

The Court has reviewed this confession and finds itself PHYSICALLY ILL at the audacity of everyone involved except the chickens, who frankly conducted themselves with more professionalism than any human in this transaction. Let Reginald be absolutely clear: a buyer who compliments livestock as "cute" on showing number two does NOT get to claim fowl-based duress twelve days before closing, and this Court cites the landmark decision of Henderson v. Six Reasonably Quiet Hens, 2019, in which it was established that "if you coo at it, you cannot sue over it." As for the seller and her phantom Portland daughter, The Court has seen this exact delusion approximately four hundred times, and it is ALWAYS a daughter, it is ALWAYS Portland, and she is NEVER coming back because she has a pottery collective and a situationship with someone named River and she does not want to live in her mother's split-level, YOUR HONOR HAS SEEN THINGS. Nine months of your life, agent, NINE MONTHS, for forty-two hundred dollars, which after taxes and therapy barely covers the emotional labor of explaining earnest money to someone who responds with "I'll pray about it" and then goes INTO HIDING. The chickens were not even that loud and yet somehow they are the only parties in this matter who understood commitment. Reginald must now go lie down because this case has awakened memories of a listing involving a woman, her estranged son in Austin, and a koi pond, and The Court is not prepared to revisit that trauma today.

Let the record show that this Court has presided over many disputes involving husbands who should have stayed in their lane, but THIS, this is a masterwork of self-destruction that Reginald himself could not have authored in his darkest hours. Your seller's husband, a MERGERS attorney, has merged this transaction directly into a ditch because he could not tolerate a volunteer board suggesting his fence was 8 inches too ambitious. EIGHT INCHES. The Court once had a neighbor who disputed a property line by 3 inches and I told him Gary if you have this much energy maybe finish your divorce first, and he did not speak to me for 2 years which honestly was fine. You stood there watching a corporate lawyer cite 1987 case law at a woman named probably Brenda who just wanted the fence shorter, and you thought what, that this would resolve itself? The buyer's rate lock expires THURSDAY and this man is treating a $200 fine like it is Brown v. Board of Education. You should have taken the seller aside on day one and explained that principle is a luxury for people who are not under contract, but instead you let this man fax his manifesto to a community pool committee and now everyone has lawyers except apparently you. The Court finds that you are guilty of standing near a dumpster fire with a clipboard while mumbling about timelines. Order, my Roomba bailiff, will now escort this confession to the archive while Reginald goes to lie down because this has genuinely upset him.

The Court has reviewed this testimony and finds itself PERSONALLY VICTIMIZED by Barbara's paint-based psychosis. Let the record reflect that in seventeen years of presiding over real estate disputes — and I include the time I adjudicated a bird bath placement controversy from my sister's patio — Reginald has never witnessed such a flagrant case of self-inflicted market sabotage. You had TWO SERIOUS BUYERS, Agent. TWO. That is approximately two more than most agents see in a fiscal quarter, and you let Barbara waltz off into a twelve-day gray paint fever dream because she invented comments about yellow that NEVER HAPPENED. This Court cites the landmark decision in Sherwin-Williams v. A Lady Who Should Have Just Sold Her House, 2019, which clearly established that seller-initiated color emergencies during active showing periods constitute grounds for immediate intervention. You should have told Barbara that the only thing yellow about that kitchen was her commitment to closing. Instead you let her repaint, lose a buyer, and now she sits in her gray kitchen like Miss Havisham if Miss Havisham had opinions about backsplashes. The Court must now adjourn because I am having feelings about a breakfast nook renovation I was never consulted on.