My Brother summed it up in five words...I have a few more.

Hello all!

Sorry for the long break, but it's been something of a down couple of weeks for me.  I find if I don't feel funny, this blog isn't funny, and that's just not good.  But I'm feeling a little funny right now, so I have to share with you the day Noelle C decided two big things:

1)  She was in love with my brother.

2)  She was going to buy my brother's house.


 As you may guess, Noelle C is a different brand of Whackadoodledoo from Elsie W.  Elsie W was universally acknowledged of whacky in a very obvious way.  And while she did call me a couple of times outside of work, I never felt like she would hunt me down and kill me in my sleep and maybe dance in the moonlight wearing my Rick Springfield t-shirts.

The Steaming Cup, my favorite coffee/sandwich shop.

Which is pretty much exactly what I think Noelle C would do.

So I spend a lot of energy NOT talking about my personal life, relationships, church, or exact address.  In Fact, I've told her I live in DOWNTOWN Waukesha, words that strike fear in the hearts of anyone who doesn't live or down in the charming downtown area of my fair city.  Once upon a time downtown Waukesha was a mess of one way streets, no parking, and funky shops that mostly smelled like weed.

Well they cleaned up the one way streets, found more parking, and Febreezed most of the weed smell out of there and it's lovely. I spend a lot of time and money down there. You should, too.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, I got some Auto Show tickets. I couldn't use them because Hubby had to work so I checked in with family members to see who'd like tickets to the Auto Show.  Brother did.  He lives and works close Initech, so he stopped by to pick them up.  He was in the office maybe ten minutes. 

It was enough.

He left and Noelle C started purring.  Really purring.  "Is that your husband or your brother?"

Brother and I have a complex relationship.  I doubt he'd see the humor in this portion of the conversation.  "He's my brother."

More purring.  "Oh, see, he's just my type.  I saw him and I perked right up."

Ew.

Brother is just barely 40.  Noelle C SAYS she's 56, but I have my feelings that she's far older than that.  Especially since just the other day she increased the number of jobs she's held in her life from an unlikely 150 to a really unlikely 300.  That's a lot of jobs, even for someone who has had as varied a work life as she says she has, to cram in in the 45 years she's been working.  (She insists she held her first customer service office job at the age of 11.)

Anyway, ew.

I thought that was the end of it.  Then, suddenly, she says, "I looked at apartments around here and they are very expensive. It's almost cheaper to buy a house."

Her drive to work is about 5 miles shorter than mine, but it's not an easy drive and I've encouraged her for a while to find a place closer.  I'll admit it, it's self serving.  First of all, if she doesn't live in Waukesha, there won't be any chance she'll expect to car pool.  Second, if she doesn't live in Waukesha it'll be less likely I'll find her standing over my bed with a knife in her hand.

But I'm an idiot.  Instead of grunting or smiling at her like I normally do, I said, "My brother is selling his house and it's really close to this office."

The next four hours were a whirl of questions about his house  (It's a cute little place in Milwaukee, he's put a ton of work into it and he'd stay there forever but he has to move to another suburb to be closer to his kids.)  and her squealing every fifteen minutes and shouting, "I'm buying a house!" She especially liked the basement where she say Brother's stationary bike and punching bag.  "He takes good care of himself, that's so attractive."
Double Ew.

 (Meanwhile, if you're looking for a house in Milwaukee, you can't go wrong. Such a cute house...wanna see it?  Click here!)

NBM got involved in this one, mostly because we all feared, since she's never own a home before, that she'd jump in and get herself all into something she couldn't handle.  That was our fear.   We were idiots.

She doesn't work on Fridays so she set up a meeting with Fritz, the unsuspecting realtor for the next day.  My mother and brother spent some time cleaning the house to make it pristine.  (He has small kids...and he's motivated to sell, so this was viewed, by him , as a good thing.)  Everything seemed perfectly normal and nice.

And then I got a call from Noelle C.

"I'm not going to buy your brother's house." 

"Okay," says I.

"I loved the basement, all the work he did. You tell your brother I'd buy it just for that."

I won't be telling him that.

"But I didn't like the tone of voice the realtor used on me. Like how dare I ask a question.  I asked questions about why the basement walls were reinforced and he answered me in a rude way."

I feel for Fritz.  I've never met him, but I've worked with her and I know she can turn from sunshine to hurricane in a second.  He was probably trying to answer her question and she had a thought about something a man said to her once in a basement fifteen years ago and that's what triggered it.

"Anyway, I also didn't like the neighborhood."

What's wrong with the neighborhood?  It's a really nice quiet street, close to everything, in a nice Milwaukee area.  And there's a great pizza place on the corner.

"What's wrong with the neighborhood?"  Why do I ask these things?

"Well, I saw a black person on the street."

Yes, there are black people in Milwaukee.  And Brookfield.  And Waukesha.  So what?

"And besides, Wauwatosa has been in the news a lot lately and I don't like that."

I had to think about this one a little bit because the house is in Milwaukee, not in Wauwatosa, which is about a block away from where we work.  So if she's freaked out because the house is near Wauwatosa, she should be MORE FREAKED because her desk is closer to Tosa than that house.

And I should explain for those of you who don' t know the dynamics of Milwaukee suburbs.  Wauwatosa is side by side with Milwaukee, and typically prides itself in low crime.  (High housing prices.  Low crime.)  It's sort of a myth because crime happens everywhere, but Tosa is in the news lately because a guy shot his wife who just happened to be a Tosa police officer.  It was big news because it's cold right now and when it's cold there aren't as many violent crimes in the area.  So we've been hearing about this nasty domestic shooting for weeks because nothing else is going on.

Oh, and the house, again, is in Milwaukee.  So why she rambled on about Tosa was beyond me.  But whatever. 

I thought that was the end of that.

Then I got a voicemail from my brother.  Five words.

"WHAT THE F+$@! WAS THAT?"

So I called my mother and got the whole story.

And now, Paul Harvey used to say, here's the rest of the story.

It seems that this appointment was no good from the get go. Whether she got turned down by the bank for preapproval, or what, I have no idea.  Maybe she saw a dead bird on her way to the house.  Who knows what sets her off?

Fritz, by all reports, is a pretty low key, low pressure guy.  Should have been perfect for her.  Apparently the conversation in the basement escalated far more than she let on, to the point where Fritz was uncomfortable.  (I can only imagine.  Wonder if she pulled up her top.)  She refused, refused to go to the second floor.  Looked at the main floor, the basement, and then started screaming at him.  As she backed out of the driveway, Steve McQueen style from what I'm told, she screeched, "DON'T EVER CALL ME AGAIN!"

Woman, you called him. I'm just sayin'.

I haven't seen Brother since, although I'm sure I'll hear more details soon enough. Meanwhile, Noelle C's acting like she never even went to the house, let her racist freak flag fly, and unsettled a man who's been selling houses for years.

Just another fun experience with Noelle C.