Please no judgement I know I'm a mess. Im trying like hell to fix my life and this is a huge obstacle I have been avoiding.
I live in California. I have a car I leased in 2018. I'm still driving it. Tags expired in 2021.
I was approved for a loan in 2021 to buyout the lease but I got sick, had surgery, missed the deadline, and never followed through. So I have been riding dirty. I got a fixit ticket for my registration with deadline 06/24/24. I can't register it because obviously there is a lien on the title. About $16k is what i owed in 2021. Current value (per blue book) is approx $12-14k.
A family member is going to help me get a car, but I need to know what to do with this one. I can't really sell it to carmax etc. because the value is less than what (I think) the lien amount is. I haven't contacted them since 2021 because I have been avoiding the mess I made.
Can I just drop it off at the dealership and give it back? And take the proof of sale to highway patrol for my fixit ticket? I am open to any suggestions, advice, etc. for real.
Thank you for all of your help, in advance.

Please no judgement I know I'm a mess. Im trying like hell to fix my life and this is a huge obstacle I have been avoiding.
I live in California. I have a car I leased in 2018. I'm still driving it. Tags expired in 2021.
I was approved for a loan in 2021 to buyout the lease but I got sick, had surgery, missed the deadline, and never followed through. So I have been riding dirty. I got a fixit ticket for my registration with deadline 06/24/24. I can't register it because obviously there is a lien on the title. About $16k is what i owed in 2021. Current value (per blue book) is approx $12-14k.
A family member is going to help me get a car, but I need to know what to do with this one. I can't really sell it to carmax etc. because the value is less than what (I think) the lien amount is. I haven't contacted them since 2021 because I have been avoiding the mess I made.
Can I just drop it off at the dealership and give it back? And take the proof of sale to highway patrol for my fixit ticket? I am open to any suggestions, advice, etc. for real.
Thank you for all of your help, in advance.

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Onceuponaclimb
Originally posted to offmychest
I (25f) was left millions of dollars by someone I use to casually date
Trigger Warnings: death, stroke
Original Post: October 19, 2022
So, I am still in shock writing this post and I haven’t told anyone yet, not even my husband. I think the first thing I need to do is speak with my husband and then decide what we want to do. I am not sure how he will feel about this. I’m going to go on a whole ride here because this is still so unbelievable.
I (25f) was left millions of dollars by an older guy I use to date. Back in 2017 when I was in college, I went to Florida to spend the summer with my uncle. I use to frequent the Las Olas area and one evening while I was out with some friends who lived in Florida, I met an older gentleman. I was 20 at the time, not a lot of experience with men or anything really.
This guy was in his early 60s but definitely looked 45 max. We started dating and mostly, I would just attend these high end events with him like galas and yacht parties and travel around the states a lot. At this time, his wife had just passed on a year ago and during the summer I met his son casually at a dinner party at his place. I would run into his son whenever I was at his place and we had a good relationship.
Dating this guy was super refreshing, like, a finer kind of life I was never really use to. It was just a fun time and all throughout this time, we never slept together once. We would kiss and cuddle but he never initiated sex. It was just great conversation, he told me about all his life experiences and how he made his money, he was into real estate, investing, and the hotel industry. He gave me a lot of advice about money etc. In the back of my mind, I knew he had money ofc but I didn’t realize he had this much money. Anyway, I was in college for Nursing (I am now an CVICU nurse) and at the end of the summer I had to go back to the North for school. A few days before I left, he actually sat me down and asked me if I really wanted to finish school. He basically was asking me to quit school and move to Florida with him and just kind of be his trophy girl. (Which honestly is what I was during the summer) I thought about it and even though it seemed easy, I honestly didn’t know a whole lot about this man, and I never saw myself as that person. I wanted the career, and the degree, and to make my own money. I never ever asked him for money or for anything at all. I just genuinely enjoyed his company.
I wanted to continue to date him however, but he said he couldn’t do the long distance and if we were going to date he would want me to live with him. For me, it was just all too soon. And the huge age gap I wasn’t sure this was something I wanted long term. We ended up going our separate ways but we still kept in touch. Checked in on each other every couple of months. Just hi and bye. I eventually got married. I of course told my husband about that relationship because it did mean a lot to me and I did care about him. The last time I spoke to him was about 3 months ago.
Well, the executor of his estate contacted me a few days ago. A few hours later his son also called me and we talked for a long time about him and how he passed. Honestly, at first I didn’t believe that it was real but after talking with his son. Wow. His son told me this guy talked about me so much and that he told him I pulled him out of depression and sadness after his mom died. His son told me I meant a lot to him because the time I came into his life was a really rough time and I made it better.
I feel so many emotions because I never knew our relationship meant so much to him. I am very grateful he thought of me and I am still not sure if I should accept this money. I am a nurse and while nurses don’t make millions, I make good money to live a comfortable life. My husband also has a great job as well. I will be talking with my husband about it soon. I don’t really know a lot about money but yea… I’m still in shock. I never thought I would ever have this amount of money my entire life.
Tldr; I got left millions of dollars by someone I use to casually date. I am now married.
Relevant Comments
OOP on how she was asked out by the older guy for dates

OOP: Not romantic or filmy at all. Just a regular way people meet. We were at a restaurant that had a bar, I went up to the bar to grab some drinks for us and he was there and offered to pay for them. He asked me to sit at the bar with him and I told him I was already out with some friends. We decided to exchange numbers and he called me. We chatted for a few days and then he asked me out to lunch. Our relationship wasn’t like, romantic or dreamy or anything of the sort. It was just a good time.
When he asked me to move to Florida he just explained he really enjoyed my company and spending time with me and he wanted to explore where this might go. It wasn’t like, “I’m inlove with you and I want to be with you forever” type thing. Thats part of the reason why I am kind of stunned.

AnotherAnimeNerd: Aside from talking to your husband, I'd talk to the son as well. You're in a spot where you and your family can live comfortably (granted, not making any bad financial decisions).
Take a month off and enjoy life, do things he enjoyed. Take his son and just reminisce.

OOP: I talked to his son a few days ago. He wanted to be cremated so his son is going to do that and its just him, his friends, and a couple of extended family members. I will speak with my husband to see if he would be okay with going. If he is, then we will attend.

OOP on speaking with an attorney on how to deal with this properly, don’t tell anyone else until she has decided on the steps on how to protect money should she accept the inheritance

OOP: Thank you for the advice. I for sure will not be telling anyone about it. I have sat on it for a few days alone and haven’t told anyone at all. I will be telling my husband this evening. And we will decide where to go from here.

OOP on if she knew how the older guy has passed on

OOP: His son told me he had a stroke. Was declared brain dead at the hospital and a day later they turned off life supporting measures.

 
Update – posted within the original post: October 20, 2022 (next day)
———-Update: So I spoke with my husband yesterday and he said the choice of whether to accept it or not is entirely up to me. He said money like that could forever change our lives of course, but at the end of the day, if I’m not comfortable accepting it then I shouldn’t. So, I have decided to accept it. Just thinking about being able to retire my parents gives me so much joy. Thanks for all the advice and input! I appreciate it all! ————
Relevant Comments
clowntown777: Be willing to talk to and be flirtatious with men older than your parents. Sometimes possibly even sleeping with them. Boom, get rich.

OOP: Sometimes good companionship is more meaningful than sexual escapades. Not saying we both weren’t attracted to each other but it was more than that. And also, you can form lasting relationships with people your own age. There are a lot of high value men in their 30s who will give you the world if they can and not abuse and take advantage of you, but of course you should treat them the way you want to be treated. Just be genuine. I have dated men who are way well off in their 20s. There is nothing wrong with wanting to date someone who is financially capable, society makes it seem like there is something wrong with that. I’ve never asked any man I’ve ever dated for money or other things. You become your environment and the people you hang around. I’ve learnt a lot about investing and real estate just by being among this crowd. Sometimes that knowledge is way more important than anything else. And if they happen to be 20, 30, 40 years older than you… so what? My husband isn’t a millionaire ofc, but he makes good money and he for sure is a high value man that will take care of me in many ways, and I will do the same for him.

 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

Hi everyone,
I'm a brand-new brokeinvestment adviser rep just starting out, and having gone through multiple exams and passing them all on the first try, I thought I'd give my 2 cents on how you can pass them, hopefully in a quicker time than me! I'll go through each test and my personal experience, then I'll explain the methods I actually used and how you can customize them to your needs.
SIE - I literally had zero experience in the securities industry when I started studying. I wasn't sure what to think after the first lesson, but I found it interesting! It took me a little over 2 months to prepare (I used Kaplan for all my tests). I studied for about 2.5 to 3 hours each day, and made sure to take plenty of notes. I found the real test was actually easier than the Final and Mastery Exams. Lots of questions of options, the primary/secondary markets, investment companies and the Acts; overall a good mix.
Series 6 - Immediately started prepping the day after passing the SIE; passed it about a month later. Suitability was the key point of emphasis; I memorized the suitability chart that they gave in the textbook and that helped a ton. Real test had a lot more scenario based questions asking you to pick the right type of investment for a customer. Tbh I was feeling a little nervous for this one since I had failed the second Mastery Exam, and this was three days before my test date. The key difference between this one and the SIE was that the latter had a broad amount of material, while the 6 asked you how products actually worked. I'd say this was the second hardest for me.
Series 63 - Again, started prepping the day after passing the 6. I'm being 100% honest here, it was almost pure memorization. I memorized the exempt transactions/securities, as well as the exemptions and exclusions for broker-dealers, agents, investment advisers, and investment adviser reps by writing them down over and over again (on my laptop to save trees lol). Also, knowing the legal terms was key, because this was a state law exam by NASAA (so don't confuse their rules with FINRA's). The Mastery Exams were a breeze, and the real test was definitely the easiest out of the bunch for me.
Series 26 - Here's where things start to get tougher. The info that I'd learned from the SIE and 6 (they're prerequisites for this one) came back to me, and I had to remember that it was important to look at it from a supervisor's POV, because a lot of questions were going to be based on this (i.e. "A rep commits X, what should the principal do to handle this situation?") The material itself was stuff that had already been drilled into me, but being a 110-question test, I had to time myself to keep pace on the practice tests. On the actual test, I was able to answer all the questions within 2 hours, and that gave me enough time to do a second-run through. Not too bad all in all; for me it was a tad bit easier than the SIE.
Series 65 - Oh boy. Let me tell you guys something that'll save you a ton of headaches later on: DO. NOT. TAKE. THIS. TEST. LIGHTLY. I just passed it last week, and if it hadn't been for the countless hours of studying I'd put in, I most likely would've failed. This literally had all of the material from the previous tests, including the entirety of the 63. On top of that, it also had federal laws that needed to be recognized from the state-level ones. The Kaplan course had 24 units to cover all the material, and a little over 4200 QBank questions. A huge mistake I made was not using all of them up. After taking the 2nd Mastery and all of the practice tests, I had answered around 3000 questions. After some debating on whether I should study some more or schedule, although I was still shaky in a few areas, I decided to go for it. The real test started out easy, and by questions 30-40, I was feeling like I might fail. But I stayed calm and focused on doing my best. I was super grateful for knowing those formulas, as a couple of questions didn't ask for calculations, but simply what they were. The ones that did ask to calculate tripped me up a bit, but I made my best picks/guesses. After answering all the questions with about 50 minutes left, I changed 2 answers; one because I didn't read the question properly and the other because I found another question that helped to answer. As you can imagine, this test was easily the toughest out of them all. I was more than thankful to see that "Pass" appear after clicking "Submit".
So there's my story! Sorry for the long paragraph on the 65; I actually cut out some more sentences to try and shorten it as much as possible. To cap everything off, I'll go through the main strategies I used, and how you can customize them to your will (Although I used Kaplan, they can probably work for other programs as well).
1) Do many practice tests. After each practice test, read the explanations throughly. Understand why you got the question right or wrong. The real test will almost certainly have different wording than the prep course you're using, so understanding the concept allows you to answer correctly regardless of how the question is asked. When I was using the QBank questions, I made sure to set the custom quiz to pull unused questions from the pool, so I didn't know what would appear next.
2) Make acronyms/phrases. They can be about absolutely anything (a movie, a life experience, etc). Anything that you can connect a group of bullet points or a concept to make it easier to remember is a good thing. For instance, I was having trouble with SEP IRAs, and it kept mentioning that only the employer contributes to this type of IRA. So to help me remember, I made the phrase "Solely Employer Puts In" (the first letter of each word makes SEP and I for IRA). Any silly way to hammer that point in means you won't forget come test time.
3) Record yourself saying concepts and phrases, and put it on loop. I started doing this a bit for the 26, and a LOT for the 65. Try to say what you want to say in a minute or less (absolute max of 1min30s). Once you put your recording on loop, you can listen to it over and over again, and this actually forces the info into your brain without you having to think or work too much. After listening to each recording however many times you like, try to write down what you heard. If you can't remember, just keep playing the recording until you've got it memorized.
4) Watch YouTube videos. Please be careful with this one, and make sure you use videos that are up to date (some videos were created years ago and thus pieces of info may not be current). Series7Guru with Dean and PassMasters with Suzy Rhoades are two excellent channels to look into. You never know, these videos may just help you snag an easy point or two on your real test ;)
If you're still here after getting through this humongous post, I wish you best of luck in not just your tests, but your future careers! Take care!

Hi there,
I live in QLD and the real estate has just stated that due to issues with the roof (inspected this morning) the house has been deemed unliveable, our tenancy has been cancelled and that we are required to vacate. They have not given us a timeline, only that our tenancy is void as of this morning (after 5 years here).
Any advice in my situation gratefully appreciated.. we are already financially and emotionally devastated after my daughter was hit by a car last october and now has brain damage... I just don't know what to do, I don't know what my rights are.
Thank you.

Hi everyone,
I’m in a bit of a bind and need urgent advice regarding my STEM OPT extension. Here’s the situation:
I am currently working for Company Y through a staffing agency called Company X.

• My F1 visa is set to expire on July 2, 2024.
• My EAD expires on May 31, 2024.
• I am on my initial OPT and trying to apply for the STEM OPT extension.

The Problem:
I need Company X to sign my Form I-983 for the STEM OPT extension. Despite regular check-ins from company X and oversight from my manager at Company Y, Company X has refused to sign the form.
Company Y has told me they can't do anything since Company X is the one making the decision. My DSO at my university requires this form to generate a new I-20, which is necessary for my application.
Steps Taken So Far:

• I have sent a demand letter to Company X with the help of my lawyer, explaining the regulatory requirements and emphasizing that Company X is capable of overseeing my training objectives.
• I’ve reached out to my DSO for assistance in communicating with Company X. (No updates and she never contacted them)
• I’ve attached proof of my employment and my job description signed by my direct manager at Company Y to support my case and sent it to my DSO.

Potential Solution:
As a last resort, I am considering getting married to my partner, who is a US citizen, to adjust my status. We have been dating for more than 3 years, share a lease and a credit card, and have traveled together to visit my family in my home country multiple times. I understand that this process can take time, and I’m unsure if it will be completed before my current visa expires.
My Questions:

1. Has anyone faced a similar situation with their staffing agency and the Form I-983? How did you resolve it?
2. Are there any other steps I can take to compel Company X to sign the form?
3. If I pursue marriage to adjust my status, what should I expect in terms of timelines and potential complications?
4. How fast can I return to work with adjusted status?
5. Are there any other options or legal avenues I might explore to avoid losing my status in the US?

Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi everyone,
I’m in a bit of a bind and need urgent advice regarding my STEM OPT extension. Here’s the situation:
​
I am currently working for Company Y through a staffing agency called Company X.

• My F1 visa is set to expire on July 2, 2024.
• My EAD expires on May 31, 2024.
• I am on my initial OPT and trying to apply for the STEM OPT extension.

The Problem:
I need Company X to sign my Form I-983 for the STEM OPT extension. Despite regular check-ins from company X and oversight from my manager at Company Y, Company X has refused to sign the form.
Company Y has told me they can't do anything since Company X is the one making the decision. My DSO at my university requires this form to generate a new I-20, which is necessary for my application.
​
Steps Taken So Far:
​

• I have sent a demand letter to Company X with the help of my lawyer, explaining the regulatory requirements and emphasizing that Company X is capable of overseeing my training objectives.
• I’ve reached out to my DSO for assistance in communicating with Company X. (No updates and she never contacted them)
• I’ve attached proof of my employment and my job description signed by my direct manager at Company Y to support my case and sent it to my DSO.

Potential Solution:
As a last resort, I am considering getting married to my partner, who is a US citizen, to adjust my status. We have been dating for more than 3 years, share a lease and a credit card, and have traveled together to visit my family in my home country multiple times. I understand that this process can take time, and I’m unsure if it will be completed before my current visa expires.
​
My Questions:
​

1. Has anyone faced a similar situation with their staffing agency and the Form I-983? How did you resolve it?
2. Are there any other steps I can take to compel Company X to sign the form?
3. If I pursue marriage to adjust my status, what should I expect in terms of timelines and potential complications?
4. How fast can I return to work with adjusted status?
5. Are there any other options or legal avenues I might explore to avoid losing my status in the US?

Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
​
​

My father, born in South Dakota in 1920 always loved that area. Because of military duty our family had to move to California. Some left California over the years, ending up back home in South Dakota, Iowa and Montana. While we like those states, the Sioux Falls area has our attention.
Cold weather, not a concern. Lived in Lake Tahoe many, many years. Tornadoes, a concern for sure. Employment, don't care....like I said wife and I will be retired. We like classic rock concerts, cars shows, E-bike riding, traveling by RV (when we retire), shooting ranges and shopping. Currently I am a REALTOBroker and appraiser for the VA. Real estate I understand.
So.........what would Sioux Fall's fine folks tell someone wanting to move there (besides don't do it)? Good areas, bad areas? Overall tax situation? DMV fees? A 2019 Honda Ridgeline was $740 for the year this year. Gas prices? Here they are $5.69/gallon for the cheapest. We tend to live middle class most of the time in California so we are not millionaires by any means.
Thank you!

I have rented my property to a company knowing they would rent it out to other people according to the city law. Its all written in the lease aggreement that they cannot violate any township law. The property is located in North Jersey. Few months later I received a letter from the city about illegal STR activity on the property. I will be attending the summon in a few weeks. One of the neighbors filed the complaint in the city about the STR. Anyone experience this kind of situation before? How much is the violation? Should I get a lawyer for this? Thank you in advance. #realestate #airbnb issues

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TL;DR: is “My Tears Ricochet” a letter from Taylor AND the Gaylors to Taylor™️?
I am a baby Gaylor (but all in and full fledged) and this is my first genuine post to this community. Please forgive me if this has been done before!
Throughout the rollout and processing of TTPD, I was inclined to go back through Folkmore. As a pansexual who was in a closet surrounded by fundamentalists on all sides for much of life, I CANNOT believe these albums are just “fictional stories”. There are a lot of songs on both albums that seem to back this theory up (IMO), but the lyrics that I really wanted to focus on are those of “My Tears Ricochet.”
“We gather here, we line up weeping in a sunlit room” - This is, at face value, the obvious imagery of a funeral. I believe this is the funeral of real Taylor being laid to rest by Taylor™️ after the failed coming out of 2019.
“And if I’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too”

 - Real Taylor is telling Taylor™️ that, even she stays in the closet forever, it will always affect Taylor™️ since they’re always going to be interwoven together by the very nature of humanity. 

“Even on my worst day, did I deserve babe All the hell you gave me Because I loved you, I swear I loved you Until my dying day”
“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace”

 - To me, this really sounds like real Taylor admitting that she’s allowed herself to be seen minimally and couldn’t be completely silenced because that is her TRUE self. She can’t “gracefully” keep her true, queer self completely quiet. 

“And you’re the hero flying around saving face”

 - I think the ‘hero’ is Taylor™️ (and possibly a layered reference to Tree) and all the PR damage control after all the various scandals (Kissgate, all the bearding/PR relationships that were ultra flimsy, etcetera) to keep the public eye from speculating TOO MUCH (except for Gaylors, of course lol) 

“And if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?”

 - Real Taylor here is referring to the 2019 failed coming out as her “death” and Taylor™️ still being at the funeral for real Taylor could symbolize all the queer flagging she continues to ramp up for us to see, even after the failed coming out. 

“Cursing my name, wishing I stayed, look at how my tears ricochet”

 - I think this is real Taylor expressing regret and disappointment that she didn’t go through with coming out in 2019 anyway, despite the masters fiasco. The decision to use the word “ricochet” seems very intentional to me, as we know our girlie likes to be meticulous. The actual definition is that of a projectile object striking a surface and bouncing off of it to land on a different surface (paraphrasing). I think she’s referring to the pain of not being able to come out being shared and felt by all the Gaylors/fans that were let down by the failed event of 2019. She’s acknowledging that other people beside her were hurt by it and making sure Taylor™️ and the team know that. 

“We gather stones, never knowing what they’ll mean; some to throw, some to make a diamond ring”

 - I think the stones represent all of her Easter eggs. The “stones to throw” would be all of the red herrings and the stones to “make a diamond ring” would represent all of her flagging for those she knows understand them. 

“You know I didn’t want to have to haunt you but what a ghostly scene”

 - Real Taylor musing that she wouldn’t be still dropping all the clues and eggs from Taylor™️ for her supportive Gaylors if she had been able to come out in 2019. 

“You wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me”

 - I think the jewels represent all of the new fans and exposure that Taylor™️ received during her public allyship through the rollout of Lover leading up the failed coming out. Taylor™️ has been able to keep most, if not all, of those things - even after the failed coming out. 

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace because when I’d fight you used to tell me I was brave And if I am dead to you, why are you at the wake? Cursing my name, wishing I stayed Look at how my tears ricochet”
“And I can go anywhere I want Anywhere I want, just not home”

 - Real Taylor is alive and well in the hearts and minds of the Gaylors and she knows that, but “home” could represent the merging of her true identity with the brand, bringing congruency to her existence. In this case, it’s the one thing that hasn’t been able to happen. 

“And you can aim for my heart, go for blood But you would still miss me in your bones”

 - No matter how much Taylor™️ has tried to shut out real Taylor, real Taylor cannot be completely silenced because it is her true identity. 

“And I still talk to you, when I’m screaming at the sky And when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies”

 - To me, this seems like a direct reference to the stolen masters. The phrase “stolen lullabies” feels so specific and that event is what is largely speculated to be what derailed her coming out. 

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace So the battleships will sink beneath the waves”

 - This is not the only time that Taylor refers to “ships beneath waves”. I can specifically reference the intro to “Gold Rush” where she mentions “hearts are sinking ships”. I would love it if someone else had some references from other lyrics or if there’s any other lore out there already regarding “ships” that I’m missing, but it stood out to me for sure. 

“You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same”

 - Even though Taylor™️ determined it was better for the brand to cancel the coming out, this could still be the pain of loss that Taylor feels for the missed out trajectory that WOULD have been Taylor™️ following Karma and the coming out. 

“Cursing my name, wishing I’d stayed You turned into your worst fears”

 - Taylor regretting that she stayed in the closet, likely realizing she compromised on something so precious to her. 

“And you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain Crossing out the good years”

 - This is a pretty good reach here (🤡) but I can’t get out of my head that this could even reference the long-suspected drunken liking-spree she went on after Kissgate, was either forced to undo all of that the next day (or came to her closeted senses 😫) and felt like she was “crossing out the good years” that she could be enjoying the full freedom of being her full self in the open during the prime of her life. 

“Cursing my name, wishing I stayed Look at how my tears ricochet”
Phew…. That was a doozy. Thanks for hanging in there! 🤡

EDIT: Meant "Lawyers" in the title obviously lmao facepalm
My family is in a full panic, and I feel like the voice of calm reason, so I'm trying to keep everyone level-headed
Basically, the original contract had them moving in & everything closed up June 1st. Now, because of my Grandma passing away, probate and whatnot had to be involved, so the date is estimated to be about June 21st-28th, somewhere in that range.
For SOME reason (We're not yet actually entirely sure), they now want to completely back out of the sale AND keep their deposit.
My parents are understandably upset, and slightly worried because even though they've done EVERYTHING right, they're worried about potential legal issues (They're just freaking out, I've tried to reassure them that if anybody is breaching the contract, it's the buyer - my parents have done everything possible to uphold & see the sale of the house through)
I am just their dumb son, I don't know SHIT about real-estate or how any of this stuff works...so I guess I'm just asking you folks if you happen to have any knowledge, or even just guesses at what could/would/is most likely to happen from this point on?
Will my parents be sued for trying to stop the buyers to backout of the sale or some kind of breach of contract? Can the buyers backout of the sale AND keep their deposit? Will my family accrue even more legal fees because of this, outside of the bills & immense financial strain of having to keep this second property afloat now for months back on the market?
If you need any information, I can try my best to answer any questions. Sorry if this is poorly written, worded, or my questions are just silly - like I said I don't know this stuff and I just want to give my parents some information, and maybe peace of mind because they're unfamiliar with real-estate themselves
Thanks :)

Hi,
Just a bit of context for this thread, I have inherited a very old family cottage from my grandparents who passed away a few years ago.
I am thinking of selling the cottage, but one of my concerns is if I get a certified cheque or other piece of paper and then losing the paper before depositing it at the bank, I could see that being a big headache. I believe back in the old days, people would commonly have pieces of paper like certified cheques or something similar, and they would have to rush to go to the bank to deposit it. Personally, I prefer digital options and I think having to rush to the bank with a piece of paper in hand would be really archaic and honestly just not pleasant at all.
Basically, my question is, when selling a house, is it possible to get the funds from the sale deposited directly into my chequing account, like if I provide a void cheque with my direct deposit information? What about a wire transfer, is this another option for the funds to be transferred directly into my chequing account? Would I be paid by my real estate agent, or by my real estate lawyer, or something else? Sorry, I am kind of new to all of this, I have never personally sold a home before as you can probably tell.
I feel like this doesn't deserve it's own thread, so I am terribly sorry about creating a thread for this, but I couldn't find a "common questions" or "weekly questions" where I could quickly place my question. I know "there are no dumb questions" but I still feel dumb.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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It happened. He didn't deny that. Not like he was a suspect or anything—not yet—but he never denied it to himself. At the same time, this all happened over a decade ago—twelve years to be exact.
He didn't think of it every day; in fact, sometimes an entire month would go by where it barely crossed his mind.
In a way, that whole experience—he thought of all the abductions and murders as a singular event—now felt as if it belonged to somebody else.
It was a time in his life when he was confused, mixed-up, searching; a dark time, you know, like a phase. Who didn't have one of those in their past?
Plus, he was married now. His wife, Dee, obviously didn't know about it and he felt no obligation to tell her. Did he ask about her former lovers?
Sometimes there are things in the past and you just let them be. Whether it was Dee losing her virginity to the quarterback of the football team in the backseat at a drive-in or him using multiple black garbage bags and masking tape on that thing he didn't have time to bury in rural Tennessee, everyone has things they would rather forget about. Sometimes you just leave things where they lie.
So that's what Ned Doyle did.
Until that Sunday morning, November 6th, 1988.
He was a having a glass of Dee's pulpy homemade orange juice, waiting for his coffee to percolate, when he opened his heavy weekend edition of the New York Times (probably Ned's greatest extravagance—he liked its heft; and how the Arts & Leisure section made him feel culturally superior to his Ohio townsfolk, “the Philistines of Findlay,” he called them) when he saw the article buried in the back.
The country was two days from heading to the polls for the General Election—Bush v. Dukakis—so most everything else that week had been relegated to the back.
He read the article twice before he could even begin to make sense of it. It seemed to be a story about something called "DNA fingerprinting" and a 27-year-old baker in Great Britain named Colin Pitchfork who had confessed to raping and murdering two 15-year-old girls, in separate incidents a few years apart, after a new scientific process had been used to extract information from semen which he, Colin Pitchfork, had left at the crime scenes (likely inside the victims) some five years earlier.
Now if they could do all that after five years, why not ten years—or maybe even… twelve?
"Interesting story here," he said to Dee. It wasn't uncommon for Ned to read a news story twice—once for himself and a second time aloud to Dee while she brewed his coffee and burnt her toast. But this was his third reading and Ned acted as if it were his first.
"What do you make of that?" he asked. It somehow got worse each time he read it. After the third time, he felt as if he had been sucker punched in the stomach.
"Science Fiction is what it sounds like," Dee said matter-of-factly, pouring Ned his coffee in a mug that bore the Marathon Oil insignia. Findlay, Ohio was Marathon’s headquarters although there had been rumors circulating about a move to Texas.
"And unconstitutional," he said. "Cops running a dragnet like that, taking blood samples from 5,000 townspeople. Thankfully, that would never pass the muster here."
"They did catch the killer so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea," she said, buttering her burnt toast. "Otherwise, who knows? They could have convicted the wrong man.”
Ned had already gotten lucky once – astonishingly so. Griffin Gerald Jones, the famed “I-75 Corridor Child Killer,” had claimed responsibility for all but one of Ned’s victims before dying in Florida’s electric chair.
"You can't have police in this country running around, sticking everyone with needles, drawing blood for some sort of science experiment,” he said. “Nevermind the Constitution, what about AIDS?”
“What about it?” she asked.
“There's been hundreds, thousands of cases now where people have been infected by giving blood,” he said. “That's a medical fact. Get accused of a crime and AIDS too?"
"It doesn't sound like any of the townspeople there in England got AIDS, darling. Unless there's more to the story, besides what you read to me."
He watched her spread orange marmalade over her burnt toast and take a bite. She had a dead tooth and he saw it every time she opened her mouth. He loved Dee but had never been sexually attracted to her. Not in the way he had been attracted to others.
"It really is just a matter of time before that stuff makes it over here," she said with her mouth full. "To this side of the pond, as they say." She took a sip of his orange juice. "Isn’t that how it always works? Things start over there in England, or in California, and then phht, before you know it, it makes its way to Findlay."
He held his hand over his stomach. She saw him wince.
"Was it my orange juice again? Was it still pulpy? I squeezed it by hand and even strained it twice this time."
"It’s not your fault,” he said. “I think it’s me. Orange juice is getting too… acidic for me." He looked at the clock on the coffee maker. "I'm going to be late."
He turned the page.
He played the 8 o'clock Mass by rote as he had many a bleary-eyed Sunday morning. It was pure muscle memory at this point. He made a few mistakes here and there, missed a key or two, but it was nothing the organ's sustain pedal couldn't mask – not that anyone would complain (not at the 8 o'clock anyway).
On Sundays Ned had four Masses: the 8, the 9:30, the big one at 11, and the 12:30 for the dilettantes who couldn't get their acts together for the 11.
He turned the page.
Today he was using Glory and Praise, AKA "the blue hymnal" for songs he knew by heart.
Turning the pages of his sheet music, reading each note, he was able to keep his mind off it.
Ned abhorred cliches (especially those involving sports) but he made an exception for “Out of sight, out of mind.” For Ned, that wasn’t a cliché; it was a way of life. He was a man who preferred to be heard, not seen, which made St. Bartholomew (or St. Bart’s) the perfect home for him.
In a spectacular architectural oversight, the church's pipe organ was situated so the organist's back was to the altar and pews. The organist of course needs to see what's going on in the Mass to read certain non-verbal cues but the arrangement suited Ned just fine. The congregation was comprised of many young families who had many young children—boys in particular—and it wasn't so much that he couldn't control himself because he was now firmly in control of all that; it was more that he didn't need any reminders of that time when he couldn't.
Especially during church.
So to see the altar behind him, Ned had installed an actual rearview mirror, the type you'd find on an old Buick, and he used a special type of putty to affix it to the mantle of the pipe organ. Having been the church organist at St. Bart's for nine years, he seldom needed it anymore—he could do it in his sleep—but it came in handy today as he found his attention drifting and he nearly missed the oratory refrain at the 9:30 Mass.
His real problems didn't start until the 35-minute break between the 8 and 9:30.
He was reorganizing his sheet music after the first wave of churchgoers had cleared out, when he began thinking about Colin Pitchfork again. The article said he was a baker in England somewhere—did it say he baked cakes or was that Ned's invention?
Even though no picture was provided in the Times article, Ned spent the balance of the 9:30 service picturing the 27- year-old ex-rapist/murderer working in his small English bakery, quietly going about his business, baking his cakes, when the police (Bobbies?) came.
Was he expecting them?
He played the offertory hymn, "On Eagle's Wings," as the ushers began taking up the collections and a family of parishioners he’d never seen before brought the gifts up.
And what was going through Pitchfork's head when he saw the Bobbies there? When they began asking him about rapes and murders that happened almost five years ago? The article said that he had initially given investigators someone else's blood when “the enquiry” began. Had he somehow caught wind of this “DNA Fingerprinting?”
There was a new usher, Ned noticed, in his makeshift rearview mirror.
The Times article said that one of Pitchfork's co-workers at the bakery had taken the blood test masquerading as Pitchfork because Pitchfork had told the co-worker that ‘he could not give blood under his own name because he had already given blood while pretending to be a friend of his who had wanted to avoid being harassed by police because of a youthful conviction for burglary.’ This story was later overheard by a woman in a pub who immediately went to the police.
Ned realized he had missed the homily twice now. Not that it mattered. Heard one you've heard them all and Ned was pretty sure there would be no surprises. Plus, he'd have two more chances to catch it. He knew he would have to really focus for the 11 o'clock. That was always the main event. He was going to play "I Will Raise Him Up," a complex hymn, which required his full attention. He would scratch that one now if he hadn’t read that article and if the Sunday programs hadn't already been printed. People liked that one –it was a real barn burner, as they say—and if he skipped it, there might be questions.
The last thing Ned needed right now were fucking questions.
Who was this new usher, by the way?

By the start of the 11 o'clock Mass, Ned wondered whether anyone would even show for the 12:30, seeing that it was already standing room only. The 11 was always the most popular Mass, but today felt different; it was packed like Christmas Eve. What was the occasion? Was the predominantly conservative town that afraid of Dukakis winning the presidency? Ohio was a swing state after all and that image of the little Greek man in the tank was unnerving, sure, but was it enough to warrant this sort of turnout for the 11 AM Mass at St. Bart's in Findlay?
Or was something else going on?
Ned didn’t believe they had come to hear his rendition of "I Will Raise Him Up."
Or could there be another reason? Maybe they had all read the same Times article. Maybe there had long been simmering suspicion of Ned in the community and maybe the article finally prompted the townspeople to join together and take arms. With pitchforks.
On March 31, 1892, the only known lynching in the history of Hancock County occurred when a mob of 1,000 men, many "respectable citizens," broke into the county jail in Findlay. They lynched Mr. Lytle, a man who had killed his wife and two daughters with a hatchet the day before. The townsfolk hanged the man twice (first from the bridge, then a telegraph pole) and then, in a classic case of overkill, shot his body over a dozen times. The authorities had intended to transfer the prisoner out of town at 1 o'clock in secret, where a train was scheduled to transport him to Lima, but someone talked.
Ned had only confessed what he had done to one person – a priest eight years prior. The priest was set to retire as he was dying of pancreatic cancer and visiting from a nearby parish. For years Ned had heard this priest was “of the old school” – i.e., your word to God’s ear, and it went no further. He was as safe as they come. Still, even then, Ned used the screened side of the Confessional, lowered his voice a full octave, and spoke of what he had done obliquely and in generalities. They were mortal sins. His penance severe: to repent and refrain from repeating the act again. The priest was now long dead. There’s no way he could have tracked Ned down and told anyone. Was there?
The last one was named Derek. That was the only one left unsolved.
He would play "I Will Raise Him Up" during Communion. Because of the crowds, he knew the communion lines would be longer and would thus require him to stretch the already difficult song a few minutes longer. If he was going to supply the masses, he was going to need a bigger yield. In a way it was like baking a cake, wasn't it?
He met Derek at a Dairy Queen in Paducah, Kentucky. It was Labor Day 1976. It must have been 100 degrees out, but it felt even hotter with the humidity. It was a real scorcher.
Derek had a bicycle with an American flag banana seat. It was the summer of Bicentennial Fever. The Dairy Queen was in an area known as Noble Park. It had a tin canopy that kept cars cool in the shade.
Ned missed a note as he turned the page. He stepped on the sustain pedal and his mistake sounded deliberate and beautiful even.
It was early evening; fireflies were out in full force and Ned was blotto. He had been drinking beer—cans of Schlitz—all day at the picnic of a friend (technically, the friend of an acquaintance so basically a stranger). A born introvert who still lived alone (this was pre-Dee), Ned was very drunk and primed for small talk. You must also remember this was a very different time. This was back when you still opened cans with an opener; drunk driving was frowned upon but not the cardinal sin it is today; and a grown man could still park outside a Dairy Queen and strike up an innocent conversation with a prepubescent boy on a bike.
"What da ya' got there?" Ned asked.
"Butterscotch Sundae," the boy said. The boy was blonde with brown eyes.
"Butterscotch, eh?"
The boy licked his plastic spoon and stared somewhere beyond the pea-green 1974 Buick Riviera Ned had inherited from his old man after he had kicked the bucket.
"For the life of me, I can't remember if I like butterscotch or not," Ned said. "That probably sounds pretty screwy, I bet."
"Get a free sample at the window,” the kid said. “They're free."
"Looks awfully busy over there. Mind if I have a taste of yours? I don't have any cooties, I promise."
The kid dragged his spoon over his ice cream as he mulled it over. Maybe seeing that he was almost done with it anyway, he figured what's the harm. He handed Ned the Styrofoam cup.
Ned looked at the boy as he stirred it a little and then placed the curved side of the spoon on his tongue and kept it there.
"I do like butterscotch," Ned said, giving it back. "Thank you for sharing that with me, that was awfully kind of you—say, what is your name?"
"Derek," the boy said.
"Derek. What a nice boy you are. Do you like dogs, Derek?"
"Sure," Derek said.
"Do you have a dog?"
"Not anymore. Used to. We had a beagle named Eleanor but she went blind and then lame and then..."
"What kind of dog was she?" Ned asked.
"A beagle," the boy said.
"A beagle, yes you said that. You like Golden Retrievers?"
"Sure," the boy said.
"Cause I have a Golden Retriever. It's a girl too. A bitch."
Derek smiled.
"She's pregnant. I mean she was. But… she just gave birth."
"To puppies?"
"You betcha. It was just a few weeks ago. She had a whole litter of 'em. Boys, girls. Cutest little pups you've ever seen. The thing is, Derek, I don't know what to do with them all. You're a nice boy. You just shared your Butterscotch Sundae with me and I'd care to return the favor. Would you… like a puppy?"
"How much?"
"For nothing,” Ned said. “For free.”
"You'll give me a puppy for nothing? And I can pick the one I want?"
"Sure can. They're at my place just down the road. Thing is, it's probably too far to bike there. And you're going to need both hands to hold on to the puppy. Hop in, I’ll give you a lift."
"What about my bike?"
"We could put it in the trunk but we're not going to be long. We'll be right back. It'll be safe here. People don't take things that aren’t theirs around here – especially when there's a lot of people around."
He remembered waking up on the floor of his apartment disoriented. He was late for work. He was still working as a salesman at the piano store. There was a big Labor Day sale still going on. Labor Day was always a big day for retail. The owner was a nice man and Ned wanted to call him and apologize but he wasn't sure what to say yet.
He hadn't planned on sleeping in. Forgetting work on Labor Day. The irony.
He saw the boy's underwear on his floor. They were tighty-whities from Fruit of the Loom. He thought of that every time he saw an ad for that company afterward.
They weren’t bloody but they were torn.
He remembered the sound of the filter on the aquarium he used to keep in his apartment. It was noisy but sometimes that was a good thing. He was very into Japanese Fighting Fish for a while until it became too expensive as they always killed each other.
There were no puppies obviously.
His apartment did not allow dogs.
His sense of disorientation and the ensuing panic prevented him from experiencing any of the usual remorse he felt afterward.
There would be plenty of time for that later.
The boy's body was in the bathroom just off the bedroom and he needed to get rid of it. He needed to get out of town. Out of Paducah. Out of Kentucky.
He placed the boy in a hardshell Samsonite suitcase, carried it out of his apartment, walked down the one flight of steps. He saw no one and he was confident no one had seen him. The suitcase was lighter than it should have been—a detail he never forgot—and he walked out to the carport where he saw his Riviera parked sloppily between the lines. He felt a wave of nausea come over him but he suppressed it. He opened his trunk, placed the suitcase in the back, and then looked around the apartment complex before walking back inside. He cleaned up with bleach. Showered. Hit the road.
There were no police gathered outside the Dairy Queen. It wasn’t a crime scene. He didn't look to see if the boy’s bike was still there; he didn’t want to appear suspicious.
He needed to get out of Paducah so he headed toward the freeway.
For a moment he briefly considered the Shawnee National Forest, which was to the north, but he stuck to his gut and took the newly-constructed Interstate 24 East toward Tennessee. Aside from getting out of Kentucky, he didn't have a plan. The asphalt was brand new and at times he felt as though he were floating across the highway. It took about two hours to get to the state line and once he was over, he filled up at a 76 Station in Clarksville, Tennessee. Only when he was filling his tank and had a moment to reflect, did he think about what was in the trunk. He imagined he had Superman's X-Ray vision and pictured the suitcase in the back, the boy's tiny body folded like a pretzel inside.
He missed both the readings, the Gospel, and the homily again. Then came the Consecration which was over before he knew it. It was time. He began to play "I Will Raise Him Up." In his rearview, he saw the communion lines forming and he thought he caught a glimpse of the new usher staring at him, but he couldn't be sure. He needed to concentrate on the song. People knew this one; people wanted to hear it exactly as they remembered it, and it was a full house, so the sustain pedal wouldn't save him this time.
Once he made it through the chorus, he knew he could relax a little.
The "DNA fingerprinting" in Pitchfork's case came from semen that was left inside of the victims.
Ned had made it to the outskirts of Nashville faster than he expected. He still hadn't checked in with Mr. Cory, the owner of the piano store. He desperately needed an alibi. Old Mr. Cory could probably send Ned to the electric chair if he wasn't careful.
He got on Highway 386 and headed north. After 20 minutes, he exited in Gallatin and drove around until he found an area he thought was remote. There was a road called Cages Bend.
He liked the sound of that.
It sounded hopeful.
He took that until he came to a gravel road, which looked as if it led to an even more secluded wooded area.
In the rearview, he remembered the cloud of dust kicked up by the tires of the Riviera he had inherited from his father, the drunk, who had done to him what he had gone on to do to others.
In the rearview, the communion lines were still going strong. No sign of that new usher.
He came upon a bend in the road that looked totally secluded, as if no one had been there in years. He cut the engine and listened for a moment. The invisible cicadas high up in the trees made it sound as if a giant rattle snake was slithering around him, preparing to strike. He got out of the car.
He didn't know if it was the trees or the fields of tall grass, but something smelled like semen.
He opened the trunk with his keys and pulled out the hardshell suitcase. When he closed the trunk there was a rustling in the tall grass but when he looked, he saw only a herd of white tail deer scattering.
Initially he had planned on dumping the body and taking the suitcase home with him. He didn't think to bring a shovel. Then he heard the sound of a bush hog—a piece of farm equipment with spinning blades that cut vegetation and cleared the land. He couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. He checked to make sure his suitcase didn't have any labels on it or name tags. He then two black trash bags in his back seat and wrapped the suitcase – one bag around the top, the other on the bottom, and secured it with masking tape. Then he carried it into the woods and set it down in some brush. He began snapping tree branches off to make cover but as the bush hog got louder and closer he panicked, leaving it only partially covered.
The communion lines had dissipated. Everyone was sitting now, even the priest.
Everyone always knelt until the priest sat and Ned should never be playing if the priest was sitting but somehow, Ned had missed his cue.
He concluded "I Will Raise Him Up" softly, using the sustain to ease himself out.
He looked in the rearview and saw the priest staring at him.
As was the rest of the congregation.
They would all be coming for him soon enough.
Unless he could make it back down to Tennessee and get rid of that thing once and for all – assuming it hadn’t been found yet.
Somehow, deep down, Ned always knew it was going to happen.
He was raised up, alright.
Now it was just a matter of time.

PLAYBOY Interview With Conan O'Brien Interview by Kevin Cook For Playboy Magazine February 1998
A candid conversation with the preppie prince of "Late Night" about his rocky start, his show's secret one-day cancellation and how David Letterman saved the day.
He was polite. He was funny. He gave us a communicable disease.
At 34 Conan O'Brien is hotter than the fever he was running when we met in his private domain above the "Late Night" sound stage. A gangly freckle-faced ex-high school geek he is "one of TV's hottest properties" according to "People" magazine. The host of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" has become his generation's king of comedy.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Congested too, but O'Brien has far more to worry about than his head cold. A perfectionist who broods over one bad minute in an otherwise perfect hour of TV, he worries he might be anhedonic, "I have trouble with success," he says, "I was raised to believe that if something good happens something bad is coming." Sure things look good now "Rolling Stone" calls "Late Night" "the hottest comedy show on TV." Ratings are better than ever, particularly among 18- to 34-year-olds, the viewers advertisers crave.
But O'Brien only works harder. Despite his illness he taped two shows in 26 hours on three hours' sleep. He smoothly interviewed Elton John then burst into coughing fits during commercials. Later in his crammed corner office overlooking Manhattan traffic Conan the Cool gulped Dayquil gel caps. He coughed spewing microbes.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. Of course O'Brien can't complain. He came seriously close to falling to being banished behind the scenes as just another failed talk show host.
At his first "Late Night" press conference he corrected a reporter who called him a relative unknown, "Sir I am a complete unknown," he said. That line got a laugh, but soon O'Brien looked doomed. His September 13, 1993 debut began with O'Brien in his dressing room preparing to hang himself only to be interrupted by the start of his show. Before long his career was hanging by a thread. Ratings were terrible. Critics hated the show. Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" called it as "lifeless and messy as roadkill." Shales said O'Brien should quit.
Network officials held urgent meetings discussing the Conan O'Brien debacle. Should they fire him? How should they explain their mistake?
In the end of course he turned it around. The network hung with him long enough for the ratings to improve and the host of the cooler-than-ever "Late Night" now defines comedy's cutting edge just as Letterman did ten years ago.
Even Shales loves "Late Night" these days. He calls O'Brien's turnaround "one of the most amazing transformations in television history."
O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, a doctor, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. His mother, a lawyer, is a partner at an elite Boston Law firm. Conan, the third of six children became a lector at church and a misfit at school. Tall and goofy, bedeviled with acne, he tried to impress girls with jokes. That plan usually bombed, but O'Brien eventually found his niche at Harvard where he won the presidency of the "Harvard Lampoon" in 1983 and again in 1984 - the first two-time "Lampoon" president since humorist Robert Benchley held the honor 85 years ago.
After graduating magna cum laude with a double major in literature and American history he turned pro. Writing for HBO's "Not Necessarily The News." O'Brien was earning $100,000 a year before his 24th birthday. But writing was never enough.
He honed his performance skills with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv group. There he worked with his onetime girlfriend Lisa Kudrow, now starring on "Friends." But Conan was not such a standout. In 1988 he landed a job at "Saturday Night Live" - but as a writer, not as on-air talent. In almost four years on the show O'Brien made only fleeting appearances, usually as a crowd member or security guard. His writing was more memorable. He wrote (or co-wrote) Tom hanks' "Mr Short-Term Memory" skits as well as the "pump you up" infosatire of Hanz and Franz and the nude beach sketch in which Matthew Broderick and "SNL" members played nudists admiring one another's penises. With dozens of mentions of the word that hit was the most penis-heavy moment in TV history. It helped O'Brien win an Emmy for comedy writing.
In 1991 he quit "SNL" and moved on to "The Simpsons" where he worked for two years. His urge to perform came out in wall-bouncing antics in writers' meetings. "Conan makes you fall out of your chair" said "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. O'Brien's yen to act out was so strong that he spurned Fox's reported seven-figure offer to continue as a writer. He was driving for the spotlight.
By then David Letterman had announced he was turning shin - leaving NBC taking his ton-rated act to CBS. Suddenly NBC was up a creek without a host. The network turned to Lorne Michaels, O'Brien's "Saturday Night Live" boss. Michaels enlisted Conan's help in the host search planning to use him in a behind-the-scenes job. But when Garry Shandling, Dana Carvey and almost every other star turned down the chore of following Letterman, Michaels finally listened to Conan's crazy suggestion, "Let me do it!" Michaels persuaded the network to entrust it's 12:30 slot which Letterman had turned into a gold mine to an untested wiseass from Harvard.
O'Brien was working on one of his last "Simpsons" episodes when he got the news. He turned "paler than usual," Groening recalled. The Conan moseyed back to where the other writers were working, "I'll come back with the Homer Simspon joke later. I have to go replace Letterman," he said.
NBC executives now get credit for their foresight during those dark days of 1993 and 1994. They snared the axe and now reap the multimillion-dollar spoils of that decision. In fact, the story is not so simple. We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to unravel the tale of O'Brien's survival, which he tells here for the first time. Cook reports:
"His office is chock-full of significa. There's a three-foot plastic pickle the Letterman staff left behind in 1993 - perhaps to suggest what a predicament he was in. There's a copy of Jack Paar's 'I Kid You Not' and a coffee-table book called 'Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years.' His bulletin board features letters from fans such as John Watters and Bob Dole and an 8" x 10" glossy of Andy Richter with the inscription: "To Conan - Your bitter jealousy warms my black heart. Love and Kisses Andy."
"Of course it's all for show. From the photos of kitch icons Adam West and Robert Stack to the framed Stan Laurel autograph, from the deathbed painting of Abraham Lincoln, to the ironic star taped to Conan's door - they're all clever signals that tell a visitor how to view the star. Lincoln was his collegiate preoccupation: stardom is his occupation. Somewhere between the two I hoped to find the real O'Brien.
"As a Playboy reader he wanted to give me a better-than-average interview. I wanted something more - a definitive look at the guy who may end up being the Johnny Carson of his generation."
"Here's hoping we succeeded. If not I carried his germs 3000 miles and infected dozens of Californians for no good reason.
O'Brien: Yes, this is how to do a Playboy Interview -- completely tanked on cold medicine. I'll pick it up and read, "Yes, I'm gay."
Playboy: We could talk another time. O'Brien: (coughing) No, it's OK. I memorized Dennis Rodman's answers. Can I use them?
Playboy: You sound really sick. Do you ever take a day off? O'Brien: No. The age of talk show hosts taking days off is over. Johnny Carson could go to Africa when he was the only game in town -- "See you in two weeks!" But nobody does that now. I will give you a million dollars on the first day Jay takes off for illness.
Playboy: Do you ever slow down and enjoy your success? O'Brien: If anything, the pace is picking up. Restaurateurs insist on giving me a table even if I'm only passing by, so I'm eating nine meals a night. Women stop me on the street and hand me their phone numbers.
Playboy: So you have groupies? O'Brien: Oh yes. And other fans. Drifters. Prisoners. Insomniacs. Cab Drivers, who must watch a lot of late night TV, seem to love me lately. They keep saying, "You will not pay, you will not pay, you make me happy!"
Playboy: How happy did your new contract make you? O'Brien: Terrified. The network said, "We're all set for five years." I said, "Shut up, shut up! I can't think that far ahead." Tonight, for instance, I do my jokes, then interview Elton John and Tim Meadows. We finished taping about 6:30. By 6:45 my memory was erased and my only thought was, Tomorrow: John Tesh. And I started to obsess about John Tesh. Sad, don't you think?
Playboy: Not too sad. You got off to a rocky start but now you're so hot that People magazine recently said, "that was then, this is wow." O'Brien: I try not to pay much attention. Since I ignored the critics who said I should shoot myself in the head with a German Luger, it would be cheating to tear out nice reviews now and rub them all over my body, giggling. Though I have thought about it.
Playboy: Tell us about your trademark gag. You interview a photo of Bill Clinton or some other celeb, and a pair of superimposed lips provide outrageous answers. O'Brien: We call it the Clutch Cargo bit, after that terrible old cartoon series. They saved money on animation by superimposing real lips on the cartoons. I wanted to do topical jokes in a cartoony way -- not just Conan doing quips at a desk. TV is visual; I want things to look funny. But we're not Saturday Night Live; we couldn't spend $100,000 on it. Hence, the cheap, cheesy lips, You'd be surprised how many people we fool.
Playboy: Viewers believe that's really the president yelling, "Yee-haw! Who's got a joint?" O'Brien: It's strange. You may know intellectually that Clinton doesn't talk like Foghorn Leghorn. Ninety-eight percent of your brain knows the president wouldn't say, "Whoa Conan get a load of that girl!" But there are a few brain cells that aren't sure. When Bob Dole was running for president we had him doing a past-life regression: "My cave, get away." And then back further, "Must form flippers to crawl on to rocky soil," he says. There may be people out there who believe that Bob Dole was the first amphibian.
Playboy: Do you ever go too far? O'Brien: The fun is in going too far. It's a nice device because you get Bill Clinton to do the nastiest Bill Clinton jokes. We'll have Clinton making fart noises while I say "Sir! Please!"
Playboy: Are you enjoying your job now, with your new success? O'Brien: Well, there are surprises. I hate surprises. Like most comics, I'm a control freak. But I am learning that the show works best when things are out of control. Tonight I ask Elton John if he likes being neighbors with Joan Collins. He says he isn't neighbors with Joan Collins. He lives next door to Tina Turner. So I panic -- huge mistake! But Elton saves the day. "Joan Collins, Tina Turner, it doesn't matter. Either way I could borrow a wig," he says. Huge laugh, all because I fucked up. Later he surprised me by blurting out that he's hung like a horse. The camera cuts to me shaking my head: That crazy Elton. What can I do? Of course, I'm delighted that he went too far.
Playboy: That "What can I do?" look resembles a classic take of Jack Benny's. O'Brien: There's an old saying in literature: "Good poets borrow; great poets steal." I think T.S. Eliot stole it from Ezra Pound. Comics steal, too. Constantly. When I watched Johnny Carson, I noticed that he got a few takes from Benny and Bob Hope. When a comedy writer told me how much Woody Allen had borrowed from Hope, I thought, What? They're nothing alike. Then I went back and watched Son of Paleface, and there's Hope, the nervous city guy backing up on his heels, wringing his hands and saying, "Sorry, I'll just be moving along." Now look at early Woody Allen. You see big authority figures and Woody nervously saying, "Look, I'll just be on my way." Of course Woody made it his own, but he must have watched and loved Bob Hope.
Playboy: Who are your role models? O'Brien: Carson. Woody Allen. SCTV. Peter Sellers. When Peter Sellers died I felt such a loss, thinking, There won't be anymore of that. There's some Steve Martin in my false bravado with female guests: "Why, hel-lo there!" And I won't deny having some Letterman in my bones.
Playboy: You were surprise as Letterman's successor. At first you seemed like the wrong choice. O'Brien: I didn't get ratings. That doesn't mean I didn't get laughs. Yes, I had a giant pompadour and I looked like a rockabilly freak. I was too excited, pushed too hard, and people said, "That guy isn't a polished performer." Fine! But it isn't my goal to be Joe Handsomehead cool, smooth talk show host. Late Night with Conan O'Brien is supposed to be a work in progress, and now that we've had some success there's a danger of our getting too polished and morphing into something smoothly professional. Which would suck.
Do you know why I wanted this show? Because Late Night with David Letterman played with the rules and it looked like fun. Here was a place where people did risky comedy every night for millions of people. We had to keep this thing alive. There should be a place on a big network where people are still messing around.
Playboy: How bad were your early days on the show? O'Brien: Bad. Dave left here under a cloud: his fans and the media were angry with NBC. Then NBC picks a guy with crazy hair and a weird name. And the world says, "Harvard? Those guys are assholes." I sincerely hope that the winter of December 1993, our first winter, was the worst time I will ever have. I'd go out to do the warm up and the back two rows of seats would be empty. That's hard to look at. I would tell a joke and then hear someone whisper, "Who's he? Where's Dave?"
Playboy: You had trouble getting guests. O'Brien: Bob Denver canceled on us. We shot a test show with Al Lewis of The Munsters. We did the clutch cargo thing with a photo of Herman Munster. Unfortunately, Fred Gwynne, who played Herman, had recently died, and Al Lewis kept pointing at the screen, saying, "You're dead! I was at your funeral!"
Playboy: For months you got worried notes from network executives. What did they say? O'Brien: They were worried. The fact that Lorne Michaels was involved bought me some time. But Lorne had turned to me at the start and said, "OK, Conan. What do you want to do?" Now television critics were after me and the network was starting to realize what a risk I was. Suggestions came fast and furious. I kept the note that said, "Why don't you just die?"
Playboy: Did they suggest ways to be funnier? O'Brien: They were more specific and tactical. The network gets very specific data. Say there was a drop in ratings between 12:44 and 12:48 when I was talking to Jon Bon Jovi. I'll be told, "Don't ever talk to him again" Or they'll want me to tease viewers into staying with us: "You should tease that -- say, 'We'll have nudity coming up next!'"
Playboy: You did come close to being cancelled. O'Brien: We were cancelled.
Playboy: Really? You have never admitted that. O'Brien: This is the first time I've talked about it. When I had been on for about a year, there was a meeting at the network. They decided to cancel my show. They said, "It's cancelled." Next day they realized they had nothing to put in the 12:30 slot, so we got a reprieve.
Playboy: Were you worried sick? O'Brien: I went into denial. I tried hard not to think, Yes, I'm bad on the air and my show has none of the things a TV show needs to survive. We had no ratings. No critics in our corner. Advertisers didn't like us. Affiliates wanted to drop us. Sometimes I'd meet a programming director from a local station where we had no rating at all. The guy would show me a printout with no number for Late Night's rating, just a hash mark or pound sign. I didn't dare think about that when I went out to do the show.
Playboy: Are you defending denial? O'Brien: How else does anyone get through a terrible experience? The odds were against me. Rationally, I didn't have much chance. Denial was my only friend. When I look back on the first year, it's like a scene from an old war movie: Ordinary guy gets thrown into combat, somehow beats impossible odds, staggers to safety. His buddy say, "You could have been killed!" The guy stops and thinks. "Could have been killed?" he says. His eyes cross and he faints.
Playboy: How did you dodge the bullet? O'Brien: There were people at NBC who stood up for me. I will always be indebted to Don Ohlmeyer, who stuck to his guns. Don said, "We chose this guy. We should stick with him unless we get a better plan." He was brutally honest. He came to me and said, "Give me about a 15 percent bump in the ratings and you'll stay on the air. If not, we're going to move on."
Playboy: Ohlmeyer started his career in the sports division. O'Brien: Exactly, his take was, "You're on our team." Of course, it wasn't exactly rational of Don to hope I'd be 15 percent funnier. It was like telling a farmer, "It better rain this week or we'll take your farm away."
Playboy: What did you say to Ohlmeyer? O'Brien: There wasn't time. I had to go out and do a monologue. But I will always be indebted to Don because he told me the truth. Wait a minute -- you have tricked me into talking lovingly about an NBC executive. Let me say that there were others who were beneath contempt -- executives who wouldn't know a good show if it swam up their asses and lit a campfire.
Playboy: Finally the ratings went your way. Hard work rewarded? O'Brien: Well, I also paid off the Nielsen people. That was $140,000 well spent.
Playboy: Ohlmeyer plus bribery saved you? O'Brien: There was something else. Just when everyone was kicking the crap out of the show, Letterman defended me.
Playboy: Letterman had signed off on NBC saying, "I don't really know Conan O'Brien, but I heard he killed someone." O'Brien: Then I pick up the paper and he's saying he thinks I am going to make it. "They do some interesting, innovative stuff over there," he says. "I think Conan will prevail." And then he came on as a guest. Remember, this was when we were at our nadir. There was no Machiavellian reason for David Letterman, who at the time was the biggest thing in show business, to be on my show.
Playboy: Why did he do it? O'Brien: I'm still not sure. Maybe out of a sense of honor. Fair play. And it woke me up. It made me think. Hey, we have a real fucking television show here.
Of six or seven pivotal points in my short history here, that was the first and maybe the biggest. I wouldn't be sitting here -- I probably wouldn't even exist today -- if he hadn't done our show.
Playboy: The Late Night wars were hardly noted for friendly gestures. O'Brien: How little you understand. Jay, Dave and I pal around all the time. We often ride a bicycle built for three up to the country. "Nice job with Fran Drescher!" "Thanks, pal. You weren't so bad with John Tesh." We sleep in triple-decker bunk beds and snore in unison like the Three Stooges.
Playboy: You talk more about Letterman than your NBC teammate Leno. O'Brien: I hate the "Leno or Letterman, who's better?" question. I can tell you that Jay has been great to me. He calls me occasionally.
Playboy: To say what? O'Brien: (Doing Leno's voice) "Hey, liked that bit you did last night." Or he'll say he saw we got a good rating. I call him at work, too. It can be a strange conversation because we're so different. Jay, for instance, really loves cars. He's got antique cars with kerosene lanterns, cars that run on peat moss. He'll be telling me about some classic car he has, made entirely of brass and leather, and I'll say, "Yeah, man, I got the Taurus with the vinyl." One thing we have in common is bad guests. There are certain actors, celebrities with nothing to say, who move through the talk show world wreaking havoc. They lay waste to Dave's town and Jay's town, then head my way.
Playboy: You must be getting some good guests. Your ratings have shown a marked improvement. O'Brien: Remember, when you're on at 12:30 the Nielsens are based on 80 people. My ratings drop if one person has a head cold and goes to bed early.
Playboy: Actually, you're seen by about 3 million people a night. Your ratings would be even higher if college dorms weren't excluded from the Nielsens. How many points does that cost you? O'Brien: I told you I'm an idiot. Now I have to do math too?
Playboy: Do you still get suggestions from NBC executives? O'Brien: Not as many. The number of notes you get is inversely proportional to your ratings.
Playboy: What keeps you motivated? O'Brien: Superstition. We have a stagehand, Bobby Bowman, who holds up the curtain when I run out for the monologue. He is the last person I see before the show starts, and I have to make him laugh before I go out. It started with mild jabs: "Bobby, you're drunk again." Bobby laughs, "Heehee."" Then it was, "Still having trouble with the wife, Bobby?" But after hundreds of shows, you find yourself running out of lines. It's gotten to where I do crass things at the last second. I'll put his hand on my ass and yell, "You fucking pervert!" Or drop to my knees and say, "Come on, Bobby, I'll give you a blow job!"
"Ha-ha. Conan, you're crazy," he says. But even that stuff wears off. Soon, I'll be making the writers work late to give me new jokes for Bobby.
Playboy: Did you plan to be a talk show host or did you fall into the job? O'Brien: I was an Irish Catholic kid from St. Ignatius parish in Brookline, outside of Boston. And that meant: Don't call attention to yourself. Don't ask for too much when the pie comes around. Don't get a girl pregnant and fuck up your life.
Playboy: Were you an alter boy? O'Brien: I wanted to be an alter boy, but the priest at St. Ignatius said, "No, no. You're good on your feet, kid," and made me a lector. A scripture reader at Mass. He was the one who spotted my talent.
Playboy: What did you think of sex in those days? O'Brien: I was sexually repressed. At 16 I still thought human reproduction was by mitosis.
Playboy: How did you get over your sexual repression? O'Brien: Who says I got over it? My leg has been jiggling this whole time.
Playboy: What were you like in high school? O'Brien: Like a crane galumphing down the hall. A crane with weird hair, bad skin and Clearasil. Big enough for basketball but lousy at it. My older brothers were better. I would compensate by running around the court doing comedy, saying, "Look out, this player has a drug addiction. He's incredibly egotistical."
I was an asshole at home, too. My little brother Justin loved playing cops and robbers, but I kept tying him up with bureaucratic bullshit. When he'd catch me, I'd say, "I get to call my lawyer." Then it was, "OK, Justin, we're at trial and you've been charged with illegal arrest. Fill out these forms in triplicate." Justin was eight; he hated all the lawsuits and countersuits. He just cried.
Playboy: Were you a class clown? O'Brien: Never. I was never someone who walked into a room full of strangers and started telling jokes. You had to get to know me before I could make you laugh. The same thing happened with Late Night. I needed to get the right rhythm with Andy and Max and the audience.
Playboy: So how did you finally learn about sex? O'Brien: My parents gave me a book, but it was useless. At the crucial moment, all it showed was a man and a woman with the bed covers pulled up to their chins. I tried to find out more from friends, but it didn't help. One childhood friend told me it was like parking a car in a garage. I kept worrying about poisonous fumes. What if the fumes build up? Should you shut off the engine?
Playboy: For all your talk about being repressed, you can be rowdy on the air. O'Brien: The show is my escape valve. When I tear off my shirt and gyrate my pelvis like Robert Plant, feigning orgasm into the microphone, that shows how repressed I am -- a guy who wants to push his sex at the lens but can only do it as a joke.
Playboy: Aren't you tempted to live it up? O'Brien: I always imagined that if I were a TV star I would live the way I pictured Johnny Carson living. Carousing, stepping out of a limo wearing a velvet ascot with a model on my arm. Now that I have the TV show, I drive up to Connecticut on the weekends and tool around in my car. I could probably join a free-sex cult, smoke crack between orgies and drive sports cars into swimming pools, and my Catholic guilt would still be there, throbbing like a toothache. Be careful. If something good happens, something bad is on the way.
Playboy: Yet you don't mind licking the supermodels. O'Brien: At one point a few of them lived in my building, women who are so beautiful they almost look weird, like aliens. To me, a woman who has a certain approachable amount of beauty becomes almost funny. It's the same with male supermodels. They look like big puppets. So while I admire their beauty I probably won't be "romantically linked" with a model. I'd catch my reflection in a ballroom mirror and break up laughing.
Playboy: The horny Roy Orbison growl you use on gorgeous guests sounds real enough -- O'Brien: Oh, I've been doing that shit since high school. It just never worked before.
Playboy: Your father is a doctor, your mother an attorney. What do they think of their son the comedian? O'Brien: My dad was the one who told me denial was a virtue. "Denial is how people get through horrible things," he said. He also cut out a newspaper article in which I said I was making money off something for which I should probably be treated. So true, he thought. But when I got an Emmy for helping write Saturday Night Live, my parents put it on the mantel next to the crucifix. Here's Jesus looking over, saying, "Wow, I saved mankind from sin, but I wish I had an Emmy."
Playboy: Ever been in therapy? O'Brien: Yes. I don't trust it. I have told therapists that I don't particularly want to feel good. "Repression and fear, that's my fuel." But the therapists said that I had nothing to worry about. "Don't worry Conan you will always be plenty fucked up."
Playboy: When a female guest comes out, how do you know whether to shake her hand or kiss her? Is that rehearsed O'Brien: No, and it's awkward. If you go to shake her hand and her head starts coming right at you, you have to change strategy fast. I have thought about using the show to make women kiss me, but that would probably creep out the people at home. I decided not to kiss Elton John.
Playboy: Do you get all fired up if Cindy Crawford or Rebecca Romijn does the show? O'Brien: I like making women laugh. Always have, ever since I discovered you can get girls' attention by acting like an ass. That's one of the joys of the show -- I'm working my eyebrows and going grrr and she's laughing, the audience is laughing. It's all a big put-on and I'm thinking. This is great. Here is a beautiful woman who has no choice but to put up with this shit.
But it's not always put on. Sometimes they flirt back. Sometimes there's a bit of chemistry. That happened with Jennifer Connelly of The Rocketeer.
Playboy: One guest, Jill Hennessy, took off her pants for you. Then you removed yours. Even Penn and Teller took off their pants. O'Brien: Something comes over me. It happened with Rebecca Romijn -- I was practically climbing her. Those are the times when Andy and the audience seem to disappear and it's just me and this lovely woman sitting there flirting. I keep expecting a waiter to say, "More wine, Monsieur?"
Playboy: Would you lick the wine bottle? O'Brien: It's true, there's a lot of licking on the show. I have licked guests. I have licked Andy. Comedy professionals will read this and say, "Great work, Conan. Impressive." But I have learned that if you lick a guest, people laugh. If I pick this shoe off the floor, examine it, Hmmm, and then lick it, people laugh. I learned this lesson on The Simpsons, where I was the writer who was forever trying to entertain the other writers. I still try desperately to make our writers laugh, which is probably a sign of sickness since they work for me now. Licking is one of those things that look funny.
Playboy: Johnny Carson never licked Ed McMahon. O'Brien: We are much more physical and more stupid than the old Tonight Show. Even in our offices before the show there's always some writer acting out a scene crashing his head through my door. A behind-the-scenes look at our show might frighten people.
Playboy: One night you showed a doctored photo of Craig T. Nelson having sex with Jerry Van Dyke. Did they complain about it? O'Brien: I haven't heard from them. Of course I'm blessed not to be a part of the celebrity pond. I have a television show in New York, an NBC outpost. I don't run with or even run into many Hollywood people.
Playboy: You also announced that Tori Spelling has a penis. O'Brien: I did not. Polly the Peacock said that.
Playboy: Another character you use to say the outrageous stuff. O'Brien: Polly is not popular with the network.
Playboy: You mock Fabio, too. O'Brien: If he sues me, it'll be the best thing that ever happened. A publicity bonanza: Courtroom sketches of Fabio with his man-boobs quivering, shaking his fist, and me shouting at him across the courtroom. I'm not afraid of Fabio. He knows where to find me. I'm saying it right here for the record: Fabio, let's get it on.
Playboy: Ever have a run-in with an angry celeb? O'Brien: I did a Kelsey Grammar joke a few years ago, something about his interesting lifestyle, then heard through the network that he was upset. He had appeared on my show and expected some support. At this point my intellect says, "Kelsey Grammar is a public figure. I was in the right." Then I saw him in an airport. Kelsey didn't see me at first: I could have kept walking. But there he was, eating a cruller in the airport lounge. I thought I should go over. I said hello and then said, "Kelsey, I'm sorry if I upset you." And he was glad. He looked relieved. He said, "Oh, that's OK." We both felt better.
....See my other post with the last third of the interview

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Hi Reddit,
I recently graduated college and started a well-paying job as an engineer. During college, I was lucky enough to live rent-free in a house my parents own. Now that I've graduated, I'm eager to move out and start something on my own. Initially, I considered renting a house in the town where I graduated and where my job is located. However, I found that rent prices are extremely high for what is being offered. It doesn't make sense to pay such high rent when the house I'm currently living in is much nicer, and my parents are happy for me to stay as long as I want. I've also invested several thousand dollars in remodeling this house, so my parents are definitely okay with me staying.
This got me thinking about buying a small home. I found a nice, small 2-bedroom house for $110,000. With my salary, I could pay it off in 4 to 5 years. I have an excellent credit score of 780 and enough savings for a good down payment. My idea is to live there for a few years and then rent it out to college students, potentially earning around $1,000 a month in passive income.
However, I don't have experience in real estate or finance since I majored in physics. I'm looking for advice on whether this could be a good idea and what I might expect if I go this route.
Thank you!
Edit: sorry for the poor wording in the title