Once again my real estate agent has proven that she can't stand it unless she ruins one more Friday for me.Remember how I said that I intended to switch agents if the pending deal fell through? Yeah, well, that's not going to happen. Although Little Miss Snippy Pants told me months ago that all I had to do was pay $25 to be released from the listing contract, that clause never actually made it into the written contract that we signed. I reread the listing agreement earlier this week, and the only thing that was in there was a clause that said, should I default on the contract--i.e. should I delist the house before the listing agreement ends--I am liable for my agent's commission, costs of advertising, and any other cost that she incurred on my behalf during the contract. Do I have the money to pay her a commission she hasn't even earned? No, which means that I'm stuck with her never-ending drama and idiocy until the listing runs out. Your guess is as good as mine as to when that day is because she won't give me a copy of the extension that she had me sign back in February so the short sale wouldn't be held up on a technicality.
The pure fact that I'm stuck with Little Miss Snippy Pants as a real estate agent isn't what ruined or wasted my Friday, however. It's her and another real estate agent's inability to consider my time as valuable that ruined it.
This morning started out okay. I took Bella for her weekly checkup and was told that she should be able to get the cast off next week. I was quite happy to hear that news, as I am tired of (a) smelling her and (b) having to bag her foot every time we go outside. I was hoping that the rest of the day would be a stress- and headache-free day as well.
It wasn't. What I should have realized was the real indicator of how today would go was the little incident that occurred in the vet clinic lobby prior to hearing the good news. Bella crapped in my hand. Literally. I went to pick her up and got a handful of something a lot warmer and a lot smellier than unwashed fur. No sooner than I had gotten us both cleaned up, she got spooked by a crate full of puppies that the veterinarian assistant had wheeled into the lobby and peed a flood at my feet. Crap in my hand. Piss on my feet. Now that's an omen.
Of course, I ignored the omen, dropped Bella off, and drove over to the Target shopping center to get some ideas for my nephew's birthday present. I thought that it would be better to go today than tomorrow since, in theory, people are more likely to look at a house on a weekend. Bad idea. I wasn't in Best Buy 10 minutes before my phone rang. Guess who it was? Little Miss Snippy Pants. (That reminds me. I'm totally programming that nickname into my phone's address book when I get done writing this post.)
She said that she had an agent who wanted to show my house between 1 and 4 p.m. and that the agent couldn't give her a more concrete time than that. As it was already 12:10 p.m., I went into panic mode. As I have mentioned before, Bella can't get her cast wet, and it has done nothing but rain since she broke her foot. That means I can't steam clean the house like I normally do or take her out as often, which in turn means that my house smells like Eu de Urine. Neither the odor nor the matching stained carpet is one of my house's finer selling points at the moment. I plan on fixing the problem just as soon as Bella's cast comes off next week, with the emphasis on next week. I had not planned on steam cleaning the entire house today.
Adding to the odor was a sink full of dirty pots and pans. I had loaded and run the dishwasher yesterday, but there wasn't any room for the pots and pans so I had to leave them in the sink. I had also left my dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, the sheets that I had taken off the bed in the hallway to be washed, and four loads of clean laundry in a couple of laundry baskets in my walk in closet to be folded. Then there was the the dusting that needed to be done, the crumbs that needed to be swept, the urine-marked planters that needed to be mopped under, the bed that needed to be made, the toilet rings that needed to be eradicated, the toothpaste splatters that needed to be Windexed, and the junk mail that needed to be put away. The list went on and on, well past the 1 p.m. deadline.
So I stopped what I was doing, went home, and started cleaning like a crazy person. I didn't steam clean or dust, but I did almost everything else that I needed to do to make the house presentable. I even got on my hands and knees and spot cleaned all the pee spots. Four hours later, I had nothing to show for my efforts but two wound up dogs and a growling stomach.
I had intended to grab lunch once the realtor came because it would give me and the dogs something to do while we sat in my hot car. However, by 4 p.m. I couldn't wait any longer. I was starving so I called Little Miss Snippy Pants and asked her to call the other agent to see if she was still coming.
Now here's a big shocker...or not, given what we know about my realtor. She wouldn't do it. She just told me to go ahead and get something to eat because if the agent hadn't shown up by now, she probably wasn't going to. Of course, I couldn't do what Little Miss Snippy Pants suggested. A few months ago, she had told me something quite similar on a Friday afternoon. She had told me that an agent was supposed to show up by 4:30 p.m. at the latest. When he had failed to, she had then told me that it should be okay for me to eat, shower, sleep, whatever. I took her at her word, and what happened? The guy showed up at 6 p.m.
So I pointed that little fact out to her. She still hoed and hawed about how it probably wouldn't happen, but I could take the dogs with me to be safe. She also let it slip that the agent--the very agent that, according to her four hours earlier, couldn't and wouldn't pinpoint a time--called her back at 12:30 p.m. to tell her that she was on the way to my house.
Ooh, if I could have reached through that phone, the things I would have done...I was pissed, to say the least. (See how the piss was an omen?) I wasted an entire day because my agent couldn't bother to call me back 15 minutes after she called the first time to tell me that the other agent was on her way. I'm more mad about that fact than I am about the fact that the other agent never came. What if I had a hourly-wage job that I had to leave so I could come home and sit for four hours? Would she or the other agent reimburse me for those four hours? I think we all know the answer to that question--a big, old, fat no.
I used to love Fridays. Now I dread them like the plague, especially if they're accompanied by a hand full of dog feces and a shoe full of urine. If I ever mention on a Friday again that one of my dogs has spewed some bodily substance on me, please leave a comment and remind me to run for cover. I don't know how many more of these Fridays I can take.
