I Came So Close To Respect. But No. Not Today.

He tried to make sense. He really did.

You know, I just can’t get behind all this religious posturing. It ruins a potentially decent message. It’s utter shit to me, but a message as simple as “killing doesn’t seem to be solving any problems” just gets all kinds of RUINED when it’s mummified in the used toilet-paper of religion.

Ahmadinejad’s open letter to Americans is a fine, fine example of what’s wrong with allowing religious rhetoric to lay waste to sound concepts. Here’s a guy, who, best of intentions, simply wants the American people to know that he and his country are not just some gaggle of miscreant sand-dwellers, shooting dogs for sport and spending their every waking hour plotting to destroy the next Freedom Tower. I guess there are idiots, probably in my own neighborhood, who still labor under the delusion that the entire middle east operates that way. But they probably also think Destro and Cobra Commander are real too, as active but silent members of the Al Qaida network. So it's likely that his intended audience isn't into "reading long stuff that sounds all complicated". Like fire extinguisher instructions.

Regardless, dude’s letter is well intended. And for the record, I wanted to hate what he had to say. I intended to be fully biased, and have all my pre-notions of how small-minded a man had to be in order for his eyes to be so small and close together. Like two ear studs inserted a centimeter apart on a full-sized potato.

But for the most part, his sentiment is decent and appears to be an honest appeal to the good nature of the average tax-paying American Joe. But then he had to go fuck it all up with a slew of god talk. Man, what a shame.

My issues, with this specific letter of text, in the order in which they grated on my goddamn nerves:

1. Continually claiming that one’s audience should be “God-fearing, truth loving, and justice seeking” is blatantly disingenuous. Either one IS, or they ARE NOT “God-fearing”. Placing repeated reminders in the letter is little more than obnoxious prodding. He might as well have said “remember kids, God will fucking lightening your ass if you don’t side with me, a fellow God-fearer!” He was only talking to others of religious motivation. Not science. Not logic. Not fact-based reasoning. According to Ahmadinejad, only those of faith are capable of solving/not-starting issues such as modern day imperialism and wanton murder.

Ehhhh... What? That's some double-fucking-speak if I've ever encountered it.

It’s quite possibly the stupidest stretch of vacant common sense I’ve ever had to endure, but, okay then, I’ll pretend it makes sense for the sake of making fun of it. You know, since he went to the effort of writing it all down or whatever.

So… what about those of us who don’t “fear” whatever “God” is being tossed around so irreverently? Are we the problem? The non-fearers? Are we what’s wrong here? Are we the reason why everything is (pretty much always) all fucked up? Well, last time I checked, the only “Godless” leaders of ANY known nation, or any other set of murderous humans, incorporated or otherwise, for that matter, were Communists. The EXTREMELY RATIONAL reasoning behind removing religion from that socio-political structure, while wholly impractical and extremely oppressive, was to ensure that there would be no MURDER along religious lines (which is a guarantee as long as religions are allowed to practice competitively). But, as is human nature, if any communist did indeed shed their religion, then they simply picked up bureaucracy instead. But for the most part, they were all religious as hell anyway. Secretly. They simply played the part of non-theologians to keep from having their heads lopped-off by competing closet-theologians.

Now that the Soviet Union is gone, everyone is super-religious again. Shocker. And the Chinese are split between a return to their respective Eastern Philosophic routes and the coastal worship of an exploding Market Economy. And of course, violence along lines of delineation is beginning.

N. Korea is black hole of who-knows, so I'm not sticking anything in it here.

I don’t think it unfair, or a stretch to state that the injection of religion into a political text of any kind will be IMMEDIATELY POLARIZING. Until every living human being honestly and truly believes the exact same thing about everything (perhaps as programmed robots, made by programmed robots, which could only have come from some imagined universe somewhere far beyond current human comprehension?) any disputing of this polarization FACT, ironically, simply proves that it’s true.

Let’s face it, if a Muslim even says the word “Jew”, people get upset, regardless of the context. Like “don’t talk about my people! You aren’t allowed!” or “dude, I don’t think it’s appropriate that you be mentioning them. Ever.” It doesn't matter what they said about "the other" group. Just mentioning names ruffles feathers.

And don’t get me started on how atheists feel when they’re even MENTIONED by ANY other religious group. If the pope were to say “there’s nothing wrong with being an atheist,” which he would never say, but if he did, there’d be a large coalition of atheists who would react with “DON’T PATRONIZE ME YOU OPPRESSOR OF THE MIND AND FREE THOUGHT. I WILL PAY NO TITHE TO THE SPAGHETTI MONSTER! Ever.”

Fools get upset over beliefs. Even without provocation or reason. Maybe it’s the caffeine. I don’t really know. Regardless, the polarization occurs.

2. I’m tired of the over-misuse of the term “immoral” between cultures. Any staunch follower of Islam stating that a non-follower of Islam was acting “immorally” is ridiculous. They’re “immoral” because their “morals” are different than yours. Stop acting like morals are finite and carved in stone. They aren’t. They’re liquid, and can be VASTLY different from one population, group, gang, prison block to another.

You might as well be trying to tell a sea otter that it’s activities are “immoral”. It's ridiculous.

This will always bother me. The semantic arguments that surround morality. It’s the newest lazy-man’s approach to making any random-ass point into a touchstone argument. Telling someone who is far outside your culture that they should believe something because it is “moral” is just as ridiculous as someone from Mozambique telling Alaskans that drinking tap water in Anchorage will definitely result in African dysentery.

Morality is contextual. Locally and culturally so. There’s no definitive.

You realize that in some cultures, what we deam as "innappropriate" homosexuality between boys and older, married men is PART OF THEIR MORAL CODE? As fucked up as that sounds to me, they honestly believe knowledge surrounding what it means to “be a man” can only be passed on this way. So they have these rituals surrounding it. To an outsider, it’s all kinds of crazy pedophile-sounding. But to them, they’re like “whatever man. This is how we roll.” They might consider our preference to just let boys figure shit out on their own as “immoral” and “irresponsible” in terms of youth education. And based on their moral code, hey, guess what? They’d be right.

To be clear, I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS. I’m just sayin’ it exists, and according to their own compasses, passes for “moral”.

So, Ahmadinejad’s tossing around of any “morality” related words is meaningless in the given context. Probability says that he’s not talking about the same “morals” as those held by his audience (but by pure coincidence, he could be, one never knows! Aha. Ha.).

Again, with religious folk, who are likely under the erroneous impression that only one set of morals exists, all one has to say is “doing ______ is immoral. Do you do ______?” and motherfuckers will be falling all over themselves to say “oh good lord no! NEVER! I’m a god-fearing moral person, I am!”

Touchstone arguments. Lazy shit.

3. Then, of course, there’s the ever-popular “justice and truth” claims. Wow. I figured by now, no politician, regardless of their revolutionary roots, would be so asinine as to claim this as an aim. Governments cannot guarantee this. You know why? Because statistically speaking, it would likely involve the removal of that same government which is supposed to be providing the guarantee. A government hand over authority/power? Oh, right. And understandably, that has never happened. Nor will it. How would a self-serving government honestly know when it was stepping beyond the bounds of "justice and truth"? I don’t think it’s a stretch to state that all governments, over their entire course of existence end up making sacrifices and compromises which amount to injustice and manipulation of SOMEONE/thing. It might be a stated “goal” in the bylaws, constitution, or whatever. But it’s the first lofty pipe-dream to get shelved as soon as real governing starts happening.

I won’t delve further into that one. It’s just so stupid it makes me want to cry.

Some sort of book or whatever

No No No. I haven’t mentioned anything about my book on here yet. Why? Because I’m not trying to pimp it wide-scale. It needs to marinate for a minute. Incubate. Crouch before the pounce. Something else clichéd and milquetoast. I’m doing a reading-type thing at a bar, and then I’m going back home for Thanksgiving. I don’t want to be stressing this shit whilst vacationing in beautiful Houston, TX.

Man, what a shiiiiiiiithole.

Can’t WAIT.

So, until then, I’ll leave a link up here to the site that’s publishing it “on demand” which translates to “fucking expensive as hell per copy”. But, them’s the breaks when a writer doesn’t go to a large-scale publisher from the start.

That will have to come after some traction, by my own definition, is found.

Word and all that goodness. Happy Turkey Day to any/every.

Pants In The Mist.

I used to be a HUGE fan of clothes shopping. Long ago. Back when I thought I could change the world simply by employing the perfect pair of corduroys. But times have changed. Drastically.

Now I almost LOATHE shopping. The racks full of chemical-scented brand-splayed single-stitched trashwear that must be thumbed through. The lines that must be stood in. The changing rooms with the pin-riddled floors. And then, of course, there’s the loads of cash required to fancify oneself, cash which could easily be poured into a glass and drank instead. Drank and drank and drank.

Until there is but change with which to exchange for whatever falls from the frothy tipped taps…

But today, I’m actually considering a clothing run. In my haste to be less late than I normally am, I neglected to note that the current pair of pantaloons on my person have a rather conspicuous hole in the crotch. And not at the seam, where it may only be seen when I’ve got my legs splayed-out like a Thai hooker about to blow out some birthday candles with cooch air. Oh no. This hole, about the size of a cigarette burn (uh heh-heh, heh) is more frontal. To the right. And pretty much visible when I’m standing straight up.

I know this because when I entered the parking garage elevator and looked in the mirror on the wall (I’m guessing the elevator has a mirrored wall to give the riders a sense that there is more space, magically, beyond the walls of the box they’re in) to see part of my boxers showing through.

Awesome.

Awesome, and rather professional.

So I’ve been gallivanting around the office, taking note of how many people stare at said hole. I’ve counted three so far. Two couldn’t take their eyes off it. The other simply grimaced after a brief glance, but she’d probably grimace at me even if I were wearing a three-piece with top hat. She’s just cup-half-empty like that.

We get along fantastic.

Based on the rather pathetic condition of said pants, I’ve decided that they must go the way of the free-ranging buffalo. That is to say: from the comfort of a railway car I will shoot them with a ridiculously large gun and then skin them for their valuable fur and horns. The local Comanche tribe will write me a nasty letter within a week of this event.

My reasoning for this is pretty much the same as that of the new Alpha Male Lion who has conquered a new den of Lion Bitches, and feels the need to kill off all the previous Alpha’s cubs. Sure, it’s messy business, but how else are the ladies going to get all hot and bothered for new relations if they’re still futzing with their previous babies’ daddy’s babies?

So I’m ousting these pants, assuming that their vacancy in my weekly pant-rotation will force my shopping hand. I’ll be self-pressured into getting back out there and finding another perfect pair of leg sleeves.

I’m just not so sure how I feel about those matchstick-legged Euro-jeans that are out now. How do they fit their feet through the leg holes on those things? Shit’s crazy in a Parachute Pants kind of way. Ooooooh... Parachute Pants...

Like the Corners of My Mind

I just remembered a long-passed moment, this morning, as I was showering. As I’ve mentioned before, I get CRAZY flash backs of obnoxiously random shit whenever I allow the hot water to blast the back of my neck whilst getting my morning scrub on.

It’s like there’s a hot-water-activated random memory generator button on the back of my neck. Perhaps I’m some sort of mutant?

That’d be pretty nice, actually. I believe that knowing I was a mutant would make other life experiences that much more refreshing and new. But I’d need to know what I was a mutant FROM. From a duck? From a bowl of porridge? A bad racist joke?

So the hot water was beating the shit out of my neck when this vibrant scene blasted across my internal etch-a-sketch:

I was running from someone, although I can’t remember exactly who, and I broke into the street. Just as my feet hit the hot, evening pavement of my old Alief street, I was almost hit by some brown Japanese model car. A poorly-bleached blond yelled out her car window, something along the lines of “hey you stupid little boy, stay out the fuckin’ street! I don’t want to hit any damn kids!”

I kept running. My shoes were pretty new, so I felt like I could run fast. Dusk was coming. It was near Halloween, just like it is now, when kids get all excited about the coming of “the seasons”, where all the cool projects involving hand turkeys, baked Christmas ornaments, and costumes arrive in quick succession. Plus, even though the Houston heat was still stifling, there was a scent in the air that always preempted cooler weather and extended stays away from school.

I was happy, laughing even, when I almost got hit. I did a sort-of-hop over the front driver’s side quarter panel of the woman’s auto, and kept on truckin’. My pursuer stopped. The woman cursed and drove away.

I have no idea was happening that lead up to that event, or what followed it. Hopefully the hot water will remind me.

Shared Consciousness Sucks

I’ve never been much for reading up on the exploits of others. Or the philosophical rantings of whoever. Most of the time, I feel like writers get all tangled up in their own pretexts that it just takes too damn long for them to make a point.

I realize how hypocritical this is, but it doesn’t change how I feel about the lot of it.

I remember in college, there were two instances where I felt almost robbed of my own intellectual radar strength. The first time was when a dear friend INSISTED that I read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It’s a pretty thick piece of politifiction, and I had never been interested in either politics nor fiction, so I shrugged Shrugged. But he continued to insist. At times, it felt like pestering. He felt very strongly about me reading that goddamn book. He kept claiming that I’d “really enjoy the concepts she expresses” about the form and operation of modern industrial civilization. The political ramifications of money votes. The “doers” versus the “critics”. All that anti-socialism jargon and whatnot.

So I cliff-noted that motherfucker. Just breezed through the little pamphlet in some bookstore I happened to be wasting time in.

Bitch took a huge sampling of my own observations, and had already molded them into a fiction template. Senseless entitlement. Relativism. The fair rule of the moneyed class. It was all there, amongst a trippy 1984ish plot. She stole my life philosophies right out from under me. Long before I was even born.

I never read her entire work. I was afraid to learn of what else I hadn’t actually thought up on my own.

I preferred to continue living under the delusion that I was capable of truly original conceptual constructs. Delusions are fantastic.

A couple of years down the line, and I had grown tired of my own conservatively righteous views concerning the purpose and meaning of civil society. After busting my ass for a couple of years, working for The Man while trying to play His Game with the whole College Thing, I started to turn proletariat. Never a Red Star, “kill the scientists!” variety of labor defender, but definitely more “progressive” in my thinking.

Coming from Alief in Houston, where there were very few, if any racial or socio-economic divides between peoples, I was not fully aware of how prevalent such divisions are in the rest of the US, and the world. In Austin, these divides were more apparent, and as I moved along through my little life, they made me increasingly upset.

Then I took an Econ course that revolved around Marxist theory. Motherfucker had already come to all the conclusions I was building in my head at that time, and synthesized those theories into several brick-like volumes: Das Kapital, over a hundred years before I was born, round about the time that slaves were being freed here in America.

And I was JUST finding my own way around to his theories. His 100 yr-old + theories, which were based on even OLDER theories that I hadn’t even come close to self-discovering yet.

As much as I enjoyed melding Marxist theory with modern-day capitalism, and all the philosophic snafus that pepper that process, I was highly miffed at the feeling that once again, I had been robbed of my own purely original experience.

The cogs in my head were simply churning out a reasonable facsimile of what someone else had already tired to produce, long before I became a genetic experiment. I was re-treading someone else’s tires. Following pre-marked trails. Inadvertently re-tracing the lines on someone else’s masterpiece.

It bothered me to the point where I stopped reading philosophy altogether (except for a handful of works on the theories of consciousness and dreams, because that shit’s badass) for fear that it would cause me to stop bothering with my own philosophizing. After all, what’s the point in trying to figure things out on your own if there’s a host of popular theorists who’ve already done it for you? Just read their ramblings and act like you thought that shit up all by your lonesome. Like every other book-smarty Psycholar out there.

But I couldn’t do that. Not to myself. Plus, I’m too lazy to read all that shit and again, it takes too goddamn long for any of them to break through their pretext fortresses to make a fucking point.

[again, hypocrisy observed]

I decided that it was the process that I was more interested in. The process of forming opinions is actually more interesting and important to me than the resulting opinion/theory. So I stopped reading other peoples’ opinions and theories and just set out to form my own. In its most vibrant mode: by way of life experience and reality warping.

And up until 15 hours ago, I was pretty pleased with my results thus far.

Last night, I watched the Bukowski documentary: Born Into This…

………

………

Motherfucker. Now I KNOW I don’t have an original bone in my goddamn body. But I’ve decided that I don’t care. I guess I can go ahead and read Johnny Cash’s autobiography now too. Fuck it.

2 For 10

From my second writing project. Day 8.

-----------------------------

Noon. Time had come to leave Vegas, and all of its spicy vices. We packed up our things, and made our way out to the Mirage garage where The Beast had been hibernating.

She started right up. No fuss, no trickery, no threats. The sun was out, and the breeze was cool, so we wanted the top to be down as we rolled out of town. But no. No such luck. Somehow, somewhere between the strip and the gas station where we chose to gas up while on our way out of town, the convertible assembly shut down completely. Actuator failure, or something equally technical and unfixable with the tools we had on board.

So no more convertible top. No more hair blowing in the breeze. No more of the suave coolness that is exuded by a ’65 Lincoln convertible as it pimps its way along the highways and byways of America. On a lighter note, no more of my crap would be blowing out the back, and the trunk was then fully available for our luggage. No more compromises in the name of being badass.

The Beast had the deciding vote on our coolness, and we had been vetoed with a heavy fist.

I was far from worried about the lack of rag-top functionality, but it did manage to force me into cataloging the ongoing issues we seemed to be having with The Beast.

“So, let me get this straight. The top doesn’t work.”

Vance, with mild resignation, “yep.”

Me, with a brief gust of enthusiasm, counting on my fingers, “the dash lights, the fuel gauge, the speedometer, the drive indicator…” there were probably more issues than that, but those were the ones I could gather together and tally off on my digits.

Vance interjected, obviously hoping to curtail the list of his dream car’s failed components. “Right. None of them are functional.”

“Fucked. All of them, yes?”

“Yes. But the kicker is the top. As long as we don’t get pulled over for anything stupid, we should be fine without all that stuff. It’s such a beautiful day though. Too beautiful to have the top stuck up.”

It was a beautiful day. The sun was beaming down on us, only too happy to accompany us as we headed east to Arizona.

The longest most boringest post ever

HOLY SHIT. I’m gonna rant about some BORING ASS SHIT. This is more for my own mental well-being than it is for you to bother reading. McSweeney’s is probably hilarious today. Go check that out instead.

Here in good ol’ Tejas, we don’t have state income tax. Most people cheer this, claiming that income tax is a socialist demon that needn’t exist in a state as independently great as ours. But really, we all hate the idea of income tax because if you added that to the exorbitant property tax and insurance rates here, we would magically OWE money for every day we slaved our lives away.

In that context: If you ever buy a home in Texas, there is something you will need to understand about that ownership:

DEDUCT EVERYTHING AGAINST YOUR INCOME THAT IS ALLOWED BY LAW FROM YOUR INCOME TAX. EVERY GODDAMN THING.

“Oh really?” You may be asking yourself. “Why bother with the headache of line items all over the place? I just Turbo-Tax that motherfucker and BAM! Done and DONE!”

Well, I’ll tell you why. Quite simple really: if you own property and you take the “standard deduction”, you are a sucker, a mark, an idiot, and there is a thick-as-thieves line forming at your doorstep to prove it.

DE-fucking-DUCT EVERYTHING YOU CAN.

It’s the ONLY way you’ll ever recoup all the fees, taxes and service charges associated with home ownership. The ONLY way. Because there are actual economic calculations involving the average amount of money that will be drained from an owner over the course of owning property in Texas. State/city/county/school taxes, Home Owners Insurance, utilities access (different from regular taxes), PMI, loan interest, various closing costs, appraisal fees, improvement application fees, re-construction application fees, and basic construction or recurring maintenance costs. The results of these calculations are extremely important to government and business alike (home sales and NEW home sales are two of the most watched measures of the domestic economy, and many believe they’ve been propping up our limping dollar for the past five years).

Not to impede anyone else’s campaign to purchase property, but there is a substantial vampire element that exists around every single inch of land ownership. The base assumption is that if you own land, you a) are responsible for all civic needs in all strata of civic need-dom wherever your property exists (theoretically, this responsibility translates to taxes based on your portion of “value owned” within whatever civic area). So, if the civic area decides that it needs some big-ass expensive shit that you don’t want, you’re pitching in regardless, for the greater good, whether you can actually afford to or not (roots of gentrification). And b) you are a willing teat for the throngs of little baby businesses that require your cash-laden milk. Just like death, it's coming. And you'll pay up goddamnit. One way, or another.

If you rented an apartment next door instead of owning your home, you would not be paying any of this directly, but your rent would probably go up proportionately to the owner’s increase in cost burden. So, in effect, whoever has the money to begin with, pays it in the end.

My current vampire element is PMI insurance. This is an obnoxious little fee which is borderline impossible to get around. The idea is this: if someone gets a loan to buy a domicile (not necessarily a house on land, could be a condo in space), the bank making the loan wants some reassurance that the buyer is serious about the purchase, and is responsible enough to take care of both the land and the loan payments. If the buyer can produce 20% of the cost of purchase (NOT 20% OF THE VALUE OF THE PROPERTY, because the bank will assume purchase price to be the “real value”, even if the price is WAY under market), then it will make the bank comfortable with the partnership, and it won’t require some loan service insurance, which is what PMI is. If you skip payments because you’re irresponsible or you keep losing jobs or develop a crack habit or whatever, the PMI bearer jumps in and covers the loan payment for you. Technically.

I’ve never known anyone who actually got to use this service because as soon as you cease making payments, your shit goes under lien, and is eventually repossessed, whether you have PMI or not. So it’s not an actual insurance.

It’s a fucking “you don’t gots enough cash up front for this shit” fee.

Now it used to be that once your principal payments (itty bitty portion of your initial interest-weighted mortgage payments) knocked that loan-to-purchase-price ratio to less than 80/20, the PMI would cease. Well, that 80/20 can move around based on all kinds of black-box factors, never in favor of the owner, to prolong the “necessity” of the fee. But IF you magically get the ratio in your favor, and IF you’ve owned your property for more than a year BUT NO MORE than five (five? How the fuck is someone going to pay 20% down on the principal of a mortgage when 90% of their mortgage payment goes to interest? Eh? Good scam), and you’ve had NO late payments in the last two years (basically: EVER), then you qualify to have a REAPPRAISAL (the fee doesn’t just “disappear”). And this reappraisal can ONLY be done through the bank’s “preferred” reappraisal service. “Preferred” makes it sound like there are options, with some being more “preferred” than others, but this is not the case. Here, “preferred” translates to “only”.

Lucky for you, according to the material sent to you by the bank, that reappraisal only costs $300 for an average single family home on an average size/shaped plot of land in an average area of town. If your property falls out of any of the those “averages” (80% of all properties in existence fall out of such averages) then it will likely cost more. But since they don’t specify what any of that means, you won’t know how much your reappraisal will cost until you request it, and then some dude comes out to wander around with a clipboard.

Oh, and you have to request it. Otherwise, it is likely that they will just continue charging the PMI fee forever, and you’ll never meet “Chuck” from Waco and his nifty, yet sometimes broken tape measurer (the only tool apparently necessary for granular property appraisal).

After the request, the bank sends you a fee notification which states that it will cost $350, not $300. You’ll likely ignore this, thinking “inflation’s a bitch!” but this dismissal is the start of your downfall. Forms accompany the fee notification. So you fill out the long forms with lots of information about you and your property, and then fax (fax? Seriously? Is this 1987 or what?) over payment information. BEFORE any reappraisal process begins.

They call a day later to set up a physical appraisal.

Then the dude shows up at your crib on the appointed date, and pokes around for a whopping five minutes. Scribbles shit on Xeroxed forms and doodles some floor plans. He’ll probably use your bathroom. Then he leaves.

A week later, you’ll get another letter telling you that it’s $500 instead of $350 because your property is outside one of many “averages”. Big surprise.

Defeated and deflated, because in the midst of the time that has already passed during this process, the cost for reappraisal has jumped 66%, AND you’ve paid yet another PMI. Awesome.

You go ahead with the hike in reappraisal fees because hey, they’ve probably already finished the damned thing and were just waiting to juice you for even MORE cash. Painfully evident.

Once you fax (again with the goddamn faxing) your agreement to the higher cost, you call the bank to get an e.t.a. on when the reappraisal will be done. They tell you 10 to 14 business days (two to three weeks) before they receive the report from their “preferred” appraiser. Then they’ll “process” that report between 7 and 10 business days (two more weeks) and get back to you. IF the reappraised amount puts you ABOVE the necessary value ratio, they will begin the process for the removal of PMI. If not, they’ll simply collect the $500 and tell you to go hate-fuck yourself. Sucker.

You won’t even ask how long the “process for the removal” might take, because you already know it’ll be “x to 10 business days”, pushing into at least two more PMI payments in the interim, and you just don’t give a shit anymore. But you do ask whether or not they would refund any PMI payments made between the actual DAY of the reappraisal (a good month or two before they decide on the fate of your PMI payment plan), which is the real day at which the new value was calculated, and the day they notify you that there is no longer a need for this fee.

They will tell you no. You will ask why not. They will tell you “because we already collected those payments before the decision was made.” To which you’ll respond “well then I don’t see your company’s motivation to expedite this process.” And they’ll reply, rather cheerily that “we don’t want you to be paying PMI any longer than you need to, so we would get rid of the payment as soon as possible.” Fried, and amazed at the ridiculousness of such a dumbass statement, you’ll retort “well, that doesn’t make any sense considering YOU decide when YOU get to stop collecting this fee from me, and you won’t be returning any you collect in the interim of this process.” Noting your sliding interest in the whole thing, they’ll craftily say “sir, we don’t want you to be paying anything you don’t have to, so we’ll stop collecting the fee as soon as we know that.”

With your mind wandering off to lunch land, tired of trying to figure out why it is that you must endure this bullshit graft, you decline further discussion of the matter.

And go take a long poop to cleanse your soul, realizing that you WILL pay up, one way or goddamn other. But you’ll keep trying. And collecting all those receipts and tax write-off notations for this year’s dance with the tax man.

Some people believe that getting what is called a 80/20 loan* will get you out of paying PMI. And it will. But it will replace that PMI fee with higher interest loan fee, which will be either equal or more than the PMI fee in the long run. And it will be paid to the same bank and its “preferred” coalition of fee collectors. Best case scenario for you, the budding real estate impresario: a wash. Worst case: you’ll pay MORE in the net, but think you’re so smart that your bigger brain got you around those pesky tricksters! But no. Not even close. Awesome.

*this is a two-part home purchase loan scheme where you put NO money down on a purchase, put 80% of the thing into a long-term regular mortgage loan, and then borrow the other 20% at a higher rate (because it’s technically a signature loan) to fill in for the 20% necessary to avoid paying PMI. Theoretically this might work, but it never actually does.