Recently*, I had to sort through someone’s files who had left the company. Mostly just normal stuff that I deleted if personal or archived in case it was needed later. But there was a mysterious file with an obscure name that I had to open to determine if it was relevant.

And what it turned out to be was a document with a letter to a home seller. It was a groveling embarrassment of self-debasement. I know this sort of thing is commonly done now in the housing market, but it was the first time I’d seen this demonstration of obsequiousness in person. I should have just closed the document when I realized what it was, but I just could not stop reading it.

I am not going to quote it directly so that it does not identify anyone specifically, but I will give you the spirit of the mincing missive.

“We just adored your gorgeous home that we viewed the other day. And we cannot express enough how much we’d love to have our family living in your unbelievably beautiful house, absorbing your unbounded good taste and decorating acumen. We’d take incredibly good care of your house and let nothing befoul it as we admire every day your immense refinement and savvy in creating such a comfortable and delightful place to dwell.”

That’s just a brief slice. It got worse. The letter all but offered up their children for indentured servitude as it devolved into utter prostrate unctuous bootlicking. It wanted to believe it was satire but it obviously was not. The above is not exaggerated. It is exactly what this letter sounded like, just using different words.

I have only a few rules in life: Buy low, sell high. Don’t ever become leashed. And the main rule I follow, the one that being a whipping boy in North Florida for years taught me well, is that I do not grovel. Not ever. It doesn’t help and it only cheapens you and makes you as depraved as your attackers.

So seeing someone, of all things, grovel to buy a fucking house seems more than a little absurd and contemptible to me. Why would you do that to yourself, to your family? I do not understand people.

*Long enough ago that this won’t identity anyone specifically.