Putin’s Twisted Fat Cornered Rat Story

Another windy day had us bracing against the those biting gusts, and in spite of our weather forecast being in the low 30’s, the windchill took it more closer to zero. I always have to laugh to myself whenever looking at what our weather is supposed to be like, because we really don’t know until we check the wind velocities. Just out of curiosity, I checked to see what the weather was like in Fairbanks Alaska. Well, believe it or not, they’re presently experiencing temps far warmer than ours. There goes that wobbling jet stream again. Just remember, when the cold comes to us, the heat goes to them. I’m growing more concerned, that from here on out, we’ll be experiencing the “wobbling” far more than ever.

The couple I showed that house to late yesterday afternoon, came to my office early this morning and made an offer on it. We spent a little more time visiting about the home, and after some thought, they decided on what they believed to be a fair price, so that’s what we ran with. After they left, I scanned and emailed it to the listing agent, along with a follow-up text message saying I’d submitted it.

I didn’t hear anything from that agent until around four-thirty, and when I picked up, I was informed that the sellers had decided to accept the offer. After I got off the phone with the agent, I quickly called the buyers to tell them the good news. They were just as happy as I was because for the money, I think that home is as good as it gets in their price range. They’ve been great to work with, and since I’ve done business with that family before, I couldn’t be happier for them because they truly deserve it. Yes, there still are good things that happen to good people.

My mid-morning appointment was to show a home to a couple I’ve been working with, and about fifteen minutes before I was to meet them at the house, I received a text message from the listing agent saying they have an offer on the table but they’ve not done anything with it. How nice. Well, the showing went worse than I expected, so after the buyers drove off, I sent a text message back to the listing agent, “We’re done. Not interested.”, and off I drove. I pretty much figured it was going to be a wasted showing because I’m more in tune to what they’re really looking for. I’m suspecting they’ll end up buying something either on the edge of our City or in one of our surrounding towns.

Speaking of surrounding small towns, I had an absolute jaw-drop when seeing how much a previous customer got for the home I sold them several years ago. All I could think of was, “Oh you poor buyers. What were you thinking?” I recently read an article about the spike in buyer’s remorse that’s taking place across our Country with those first-time buyers who’ve been purchasing on whims just to get out of the rental market. One of the “think tanks” came out and said, “To be realistic, a new homeowner had better figure on spending at least one percent of their purchase price per year for repairs and maintenance on their recent purchases.” Those words couldn’t have been any closer to the truth, but the scary part about it is, most first-time buyers have nearly drained their cash reserves to get those homes purchased. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve bought into financial ticking time bombs. Sooner or later we must live and learn, but hopefully not the hard way.

The bulk of my day was spent checking on several properties, doing a little shopping, along with some additional cleaning which I’d been placing on my “tomorrow” list, so tomorrow finally did arrive. By the time I was finished, it was nearing the hour for me to call it quits, so I closed up shop and headed in the direction of home.

I’ve been limiting myself on the amount of reading each day regarding the news coming out of Putin’s war in Ukraine, and only because I start growing very angry with “Putin the Evil” and his circle of cronies. I’m not the least bit surprised at how resilient the Ukrainians have been considering the odds that were stacked against them at the beginning of the war.

Of course there’s likely no one who can fully understand what’s going on in Putin’s mind, so it’s a crap shoot as to what his end-game really is considering how his planned three day war has turned into one month with no end in sight. I’m hoping and praying the morale in Putin’s troops will continue to erode to where there’ll be more of them surrendering. One of the clips I read today, mentioned that some of them are even joining the ranks of the Ukrainian army. Now that’s saying something about how they feel about Putin and his regime. One of them said, “I’d rather take my chances surrendering than end up as fertilizer in one of their fields.” That guy definitely must’ve had a good sense of what real world is.

Every time I read something about Putin’s childhood story about the fat cornered rat in his family’s apartment building, I continue thinking such a story being nothing more than a way for him to give the world a glimpse of how he’d react when cornered. Well, he should’ve done a little more deep-thinking about what he was going to do in Ukraine because his personal “cornered rat” story turned into one which the Ukrainians can use against him, because he alone turned over forty million innocent people into cornered rats who’re now turning on him. I wonder if he’ll have a place to run and hide like he did when his childhood rat came running after him. Having dealt with rats back when I was young and living on a farm, I first feared them, but later learned their ways which nearly always sent them to their dirt naps. To this day, I still despise rats because if you see one, there’s likely ten others hiding in their dark holes.

Tonight’s One-liner is: It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.

Joe Chodur

About the Author | Joe Chodur

First of all....Joe Chodur really doesn't like talking about himself but this is what we have found out about him. Joe Chodur began his real estate career in 1981 during the height of the savings and loan crisis. It's hard to imagine how difficult it was to sell homes when…

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