I've never been one to pour over contracts. I don't look forward to it. Which is not to say I haven't spent a fair amount of time doing just that. I took several contract writing courses in college and, after all, I do run a business that can be pretty contract oriented. But that doesn't mean I like it.

So when my wife and I started the process of looking for a house, I had to start mentally preparing myself for all the contracts and paperwork I'd have to read and scrutinize. I started this process early so I wouldn't be a jerk about the whole thing when it finally happened. It helps to know that you're going to have to do something like this, that way you can get the petty feelings out of the way early.

I have a beef with contracts, though.

A contract is meant to be specific, to lock down all of the pertinent details of a deal between two or more entities so that there can be no question of anyone's obligations or responsibilities. That said, does anyone else feel like a contract is the most vague thing they've ever experienced?

In one of my contract writing courses I was actually told by the professor that you want to purposefully leave loopholes in a contract so that it can be manipulated. I argued with that, of course, but in the end you're just not going to win against the guy teaching the class. But really, what's the point of building in a loophole? Well, honestly, it's so the lawyers have room to do their dance when they need to.

But loopholes aside, my real gripe with contracts is that they use jargon and language that no normal human being is going to be able to fully comprehend. I believe, with all my heart, that contracts are written with the express intention to confuse the reader. They aren't clear from beginning to end. You can't sit down with a good contract at the end of a long day and come away feeling educated.

You have to read a contract more than once. I don't know about most people, but I know that if I read a book once I have the gist of it, and if I read a magazine article once I can pretty much quote it back. But with a contract, I have to read not once, twice or even three times but usually MORE. By the time it's all said and done, I've had to read the thing half a dozen times just to make sure I'm not signing away the rights to private parts.

The reality, though, is that most people never read a contract even once. And I have to admit that a lot of times that includes me. I've never read my cell phone contract, for example. I've never read the warranty information on anything I've ever bought. I don't know what the rules are regarding my apartment lease.

You may ask, why would you not read these things? Aren't they important? My answer to that is another question - If you read something you didn't like in, say, your apartment lease, would that keep you from getting the apartment? Would you be able to change the offensive article and make things go your way?

No.

Because contracts are a shortcut used by the faceless part of a business to just get the signer good and hooked. They are purposefully cumbersome because the writer is counting on the reader to get bogged down and just sign to get it over with.

No one really reads contracts. Not fully. Not the way they're intended to be read.

I'd much rather sign a bullet list of things I can and can't do, personally. Just make it a one-pager that I can glance over two or three times as needed and sign at the bottom. No need for fancy words that I have to look up in a special dictionary. Just finish every bullet list with the words"under penalty of death" and I guarantee EVERYONE will read it six or seven times to make sure they have it memorized.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor for ViewOnline Magazine and a Writer/Producer for Hat Digital Media. You can reach him at kevin@viewonline.com. He is contractually obligated to say that.