I gotta say I'm confused about all the proposed base closings that are going on — why they're necessary, I mean. Can somebody explain it to me? Did somebody forget to carry a digit? I guess when they said, "An Army of One" they really meant it!

Ready for this one? The latest news is that our appraiser has appraised the house way over what we paid for it and wants to know why we got such a deal. Apparently, appraisers always try to appraise a house as close to possible to the price paid. According to our agent, "right know he has to try and get this appraisal down."

I told our agent to tell the appraiser about the neighbor's noisy pool filter. He said he didn't think that would count for much.

"Well, how about the gay ghost, then?"
"The what?"
"The guy who died — Keith? You saw the decorating. Clearly gay. We figure the house is haunted. We all saw Amityvile Horror, the Poltergeist movies. Gay ghost's gotta be worth something, right?"
"You're out of your mind."
"Oh, sure. You say that now. Just wait six months when our crabapple tree comes to life and the house implodes, then gets sucked into a giant pit through some bizarre inexplicable supernatural phenomenon!"
"I'll make a mental note."
"Anyway, I thought the whole idea of the appraisal was to insure the bank is able to get its money back if something ever happens and they have to sell the house...like, let's just say, if our gay ghost decides to reap his revenge on his for living in his house after buying it so cheap!"
"Could we just leave the whole ghost thing out of this conversation?"
"You'd think the bank would be ecstatic we got such a great deal!"
"Yeah, well, if a house appraises a lot higher, it means more paperwork for the appraiser."
"Oh no. Not paperwork. You mean for $300 bucks he's actually going to have to do some paperwork. Tell you what. Call the realtor. Tell her we want to up the price of the house another forty grand for the house. God forbid somebody should have to do paperwork!...hello?...hello?"
"I'll tell him about the ghost."