Gosh darn it, shucks (I don't like to swear on my blog) and other people's stories: the car thief

Well, the whole gosh darn real estate transaction fell through. The house is up for sale again. It turns out the buyers (let's call them Mr. and Mrs. X [I have no idea who the heck they are, anyway!]) - It turns out Mrs. X does not have a valid Social Security Number to obtain a loan to buy the house! And this is after, well, about twenty crazy things which I won't go into.

My dad called it. (Maybe.) A few weeks ago, Mr. and Mrs. X were having trouble getting a mortgage because Mrs. X had no credit history, because she "grew up on a farm" and her "mom and dad told her never to use credit". This, I thought, was possibly admirable. Wow. How do you get through life without using credit? Mrs. X is around forty years old. Because she had no credit and couldn't get a loan, they wanted us to basically rent to own the house to them for a while, until they built some credit history. My dad was totally against it,

"Who are these people? Who goes through life with no credit? No, no. They're drug dealers. Stay away from these people. You don't want them in your life. Sell it to someone else. And make them replace those ceiling tiles! [long story] And don't be Canadian about it!" (I love the last bit. I'd never heard that expression, "Don't be Canadian." Lovely.)

But then, Mr. and Mrs. X got another hope. Another lender thought he could work it out for them. And it was all going so well, until... my great real estate agent called me today,

"Are you sitting down? Because... okay. Mrs. X called today, and apparently she does not have a valid Social Security Number." After much What da's? she explained how Mrs. X explained it,
"I loaned my social to someone a few years back. I thought it was all cleared up, but I guess it wasn't."

Huh?

Okay, well, I could go on, but... let's not rant. Let's just say that I no longer trust the word of Mrs. X. Unless... can you think of any possible legitimate reason that a person would not have a valid social security number? She doesn't seem foreign at all. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe they are drug dealers. Who knows?

Now it seems like we have a reason for Mrs. X's lack of credit: Mrs. X just newly became Mrs. X and has had no time for a credit history... or? Is there an explanation? Really, if you can think of one, I'd love to hear it.

Of course, this reminds me of a story...


PART 2 OF THE MARCH 23 BLOG ENTRY: OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES: THE CAR THIEF

This reminds me of the time my mom married that Mexican guy to help him become a U.S. citizen.

This was before I was born.

My mom had this boyfriend who was Mexican and wanted to be a U.S. citizen. So, she married him. I don't know the guy's name, so let's call him my favorite Mexican name: Jesus.

Frances was never the type of girl to dream of a walk down the aisle dressed as a fairy princess, her father on her arm to faithfully give her away. This was not a marriage where she made Jesus's favorite pot roast every Thursday night and they watched Laurence Welc on the tele. (I have not a clue what other people did in the late sixties and early seventies, obviously. Maybe they watched Johnny Cash's short lived variety show? No clue. Maybe people didn't watch TV then. But now I've really gone off course...) Anyway, I asked her about Jesus years later (after my dad told me this story) and she smiled at the memory of him, but it wasn't like she'd lost the love of her life or anything.

After a while of being sort of married to Jesus, but dating other people? (okay, I know virtually no details here) my mom wanted to marry my dad and have a daughter and give her a weird name to carry with her like a billboard that said, "HIPPIE PARENTS!" for the rest of her life, so she naturally needed to divorce her husband, Jesus. But Jesus wouldn't have it. He didn't want a divorce. So, she did what anyone wouldn't do. She stole his car. And she hid it.

Poor Jesus was beside himself without his cherished car (I now picture the car like the buses of Mexico, only smaller) but the police would do nothing. They said that she was his wife, so it was her car, too, because people who are married have common property. Now, if they were divorced, that would be another story, but since they were married, the police could do nothing.

Jesus granted Frances a divorce. Later, Frances married my dad in bermuda shorts. It just goes to show: Sometimes, stealing a car really is the best solution.

Frances, 1951, Lake Tahoe.