Hello? Howie?

I got my very first Friday update from Howie the Hack! Mind you, Marty Sunshine and I tried contacting him with a variety of methods no less than six times in a two week period before we gave up.

Friday, I heard from him, as if I was under the impression he had been toiling away on my behalf and I might be a little bit curious what he had been dilligently working on for the past six weeks. Howie asked for a lot of information and bandied about the upcoming hearing where we would finally be able to ask the judge to kick these people out of my home.

I had fleeting thoughts of bad dates in high school where the boy would call out of the blue, completely bypassing any legitimate reasons why he hadn't stayed in touch. When asked about his lack of follow-up to that point, the boy in question would make up some seriously lame excuse like he lost my number (though he was calling) or his mom had been sick in bed with a toothache (for three weeks) or something equally stupid. At this point, he would quickly change the subject, assuming everything was just dandy and did I want to do something that night? (And by the way guys, we completely understood the subtext and though you were idiots. Then we told our girlfriends you were idiots too. Then we would snicker and bring you up at random times when we needed a laugh).

I did write Howie back. I told him because I he hadn't bothered to return my e-mails and phone calls, we had moved on--though I said it a bit more politely. And, by the way, great news! The folks already moved out and the house. (snicker...)