Are there any sweeter words?

I played around for the past ten minutes trying to decide if I just come right out and say it… or dangle a few clues in your general direction.

Since my attention span is about as long as the life of a fruit fly, I came down on the side of right now.

WE SOLD OUR BOAT!

Yes, it’s all very exciting. I’m still in shock and the Mister has been a bear to live with for the past week and a half. Because…

We had the offer arrive a week and a half ago but I made the Mister promise not to say nothing to nobody. The main reason I wanted him to stay mum is I had a bad feeling about the buyer and I didn’t want to let the kitty out until the cash was in the bank.

Well, the money was just wired 20 minutes ago and I was totally correct about the new owner. He’s an asshole.

To cut to the chase…he made an offer. We countered. He came up half-way and we said yes. There was a survey and a sea trial of the boat and then the dickering started. Turned out, for a boat that’s 27 years old, it was in great condition (the surveyor was impressed) except…there was some moisture in the hull (above the waterline) that was not structural, but that should to be repaired if the buyer was considering selling it at some future date. We had said all along that we would meet anyone half-way with reasonable repair costs and THIS WAS NOT STRUCTURAL. Our broker got a quote for the guy…$12,500. We told him we’d pay half. The buyer said na-hah. He wanted us to take off the total amount from the final price. But get this…the repair was quoted at $4,000 and the balance was to paint the entire side of the boat!

The repair patch is one foot square. Not a lot of real estate on a 42 foot boat. He could sail this boat around the world without a problem. But, no. He wanted to chisel us out of every penny he could.

Did I mention he’s an Aussie? Yep, floored me, too. Everyone I’ve met from Australia has been great fun and full of life. This guy is an obvious transplant to that country and his fellow Aussies must be mortally ashamed he has an accent like they do.

Anyway. We told our broker no flippin’ way and (after I had climbed down from the ceiling) asked for an hour to think about it. We called him back and offered to pay half the total quote. The fucker said no. We then told our broker we’d think about things overnight. We tallied up how much it would cost us to do the repair ourselves, how much to store, how much for boat insurance, and how much in case something went wrong between now and when another buyer showed up, and decided to ask our broker to get another quote. He did…and it came in at $10,000.

We offered to reduce the boat price by the amount of the repair and half the paint costs. The fucker said no.

At this point we realized we were dealing with someone who knew we wanted out and who was going to gouge us and you know what? We decided to agree to the 10K reduction. Just so we could get it over with, save the money we’d have to spend in the future and get the hell away from the marina and this vile specimen of a human being.

We both felt pretty good about the decision. I felt even better when I looked at the Mister and said…

“I am NOT leaving one single thing on this boat that is not included on the equipment list.
Not even a piece of toilet paper to wipe his ASS.”

And I didn’t. By the time I was done yesterday, the boat was clean and totally without dishes, silverware, pots & pans, linens, sockets, wrenches, tools, cleaning supplies, etc. I even took our espresso maker…and all 17 rolls of toilet paper.

I told the Mister that we’d probably get a phone call when he showed up today with the broker. We did. We reminded him that all that stuff was not on the list and that we had given it all away to charity. (Except for the express maker.) I feel kind of bad for our broker…I’m sure he took quite a lashing and we still haven’t talked to him. But as our broker said right for the start…he works for us, not the buyer. I think he may have earned his commission.

I have a pleaser personality. I want everyone to get along and believe that there is always a solution to any problem. But when this guy just keep pounding on us, I said screw it and gave a finger to the “Godfather.” This was not business…it was personal. And I was taking a gun.

So, we sit here a little bit in shock. It didn’t help that the person wiring the funds from our broker’s account to our account forgot to send the transfer at 10am but rather left it until 12:30pm because she’s in Seattle and “forgot” about the time difference and the money didn’t arrive until almost closing time at our bank.

Yes, we lost a bit of money on the deal but the stress is gone, the Mister can stop worry about every time he stepped onboard the boat that something would break and I’m feeling 100 per cent fine with my decision to make sure the first thing this guy did after moving on the boat was to go out, drop cash on a rental and go spend money on things he could have had for free.

If only he’d been willing to meet us half-way.

Loser.

I’m sure I’ll think of lots more to tell you about tomorrow but for now, I’ve got to go find a place that makes decent pizza and crack open a bottle of rather nice red wine that’s been waiting for this day for what feels like forever.