If you ever need to hear other escrow and closing horror stories, to convince you that you are not alone, I have a doozy to share with you, courtesy of our recent house-buying extravaganza. But until then, I will just share with you something I learned from that: the closing date is not set in blood. If there's a disaster, your Realtor can call the other party's Realtor and say, "Look, Ameritrade are fuck-ups who have fucked up." And provided the other party is not interested in going through the hell of re-listing and so on (this does not work so well if the market is going up sharply, FYI), then what will happen is you will amend the closing agreement and close in a week or so.

Or, in our case, you will amend the closing agreement FIFTEEN TIMES and close in two months. But, right, you didn't want to hear about that. (For the record, that won't happen to you; our fuck-up was orchestrated by many, all working overtime for nothing except the sheer beauty of fucking up really, really badly. A delayed check will be fine.)

I send you the greatest of sympathy in your time of real estate travail, and I promise you, eventually it does end. And then you have a house!