Seriously, sweatily fucked. This is what a realtor who works for a company called GITA did to my partner Patrick and I this weekend.

GITA stands for, and I’m not kidding, God Is The Answer.

Patrick and I have been looking for a house for about a month without any luck, slogging our way through swamp zones, dilapidation and painful ’70s remodels. It’s not that long to be looking, but meanwhile, we’re commuting from Tacoma, and we’re ready to move. And on Friday, lightning struck. I fell in love with this great little sorta-fixer in Madrona. (Patrick’s love was less sudden but it came along.) We saw it in the early afternoon, just after it went on the market, and that night, we went over to our realtor’s office to make an offer at full price. We couldn’t go higher than that, really, but we thought at least we had time on our side.

Our realtor, a fabulous individual who does not work for GITA and is in fact a heathen like us, began writing the offer. He was checking the listing to get some information when he noticed that the selling agent — from GITA — had changed her remarks since earlier that afternoon, which is against realty rules, I guess. She was saying now that she wouldn’t be accepting offers for another week, meaning that we’d probably lose our time advantage, and maybe end up being outbid. But we were determined to still try. So, we thought we would wait to make our offer until later in the week, when we would know more about the other possible offers — if there are pre-inspections, then we pretty much know for sure there will be multiple offers, and we might want to try to see whether we could scrape up some money or some courage and go a little higher. We really wanted this house.

Two days later, on Sunday, I noticed online that the house was already sold pending inspection. Our realtor called the GITA lady. She said sorry, she’d screwed up, but basically, she just decided to violate her own stipulation because she’d felt like it. She had no explanation. If we had kept going with that original offer on Friday night, we’d probably have the house by now. Jesus Freak Bitch!

Our only comfort is that this woman’s jackassed moves might earn her a fine from the listing service of $20,000 or some such. But that does not put the Triscuit cracker in my stomach.