The latter would be me. As of Saturday night, nice, quiet, sometimes shy Staci is gone. Only Staci the Uber-Bitch will deal with the Realtor from Hell from now on. I lost it with her Saturday night. After Friday's ordeal, I was already at wit's end. Then Saturday morning Little Miss Snippy Pants called to say that her client was in my neighborhood and wanted to come in, right then and there. I was about to leave to run the errands that I had intended to do Friday, but once again, I had to put them aside for a showing.Fine. I could live with the inconvenience, as it was in the middle of the day. What I couldn't live with, however, and what finally set me off was when she called me Saturday night--that's right, I said night--to say that a realtor was right outside my neighborhood and about to show my house. That's when I lost it.
It was 7:30 p.m. I was tired. I was hungry. I wanted nothing more than to take off my bra, put on my pajamas, and fix supper, but all of a sudden I couldn't do any of those things because my real estate agent thought 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday night was an appropriate time to show a house.
So I told her it wasn't appropriate. I told her I had not had supper yet, that it was dark outside or getting dark, and that I can't see worth a damn to drive at night. What did she have to say in return?
"Well, that's just something you're going to have to learn to live with if you want to get this house sold." (In the nastiest tone possible, I might add.)
That's when I went off on her. I matched her nasty tone with my own nasty one. Among other things, I told her that why I do want to sell my house, there is an appropriate time and place to show it, and when it's dark outside is not it. I further said that, if a telemarketer cannot call my house at certain times of the day, random realtors shouldn't be able to walk in during those times or whenever they please. I once again pointed out that my night vision sucks, and I didn't feel comfortable driving in the dark.
A reasonable, caring realtor would have said, "I understand. I'll be glad to call him back and tell him to reschedule," but alas my realtor is neither caring nor reasonable. If she was, I wouldn't have given her the nickname Little Miss Snippy Pants.
What did she say? Cue another nasty response. "So what do you want me to do, call him back and say no? He's probably already outside of your house right now."
What I wanted her to do was do her job. I wanted her to continue marketing this house to other realtors for the last two months instead of acting like the house was under contract, which it wasn't. I wanted her to take my interests into consideration. I wanted her to care about something other than her rapidly dwindling commission. (Have I mentioned that HUD told us to lower the price another $20,000? That means her precious take at closing just went down as well.)
Of course, we all know that she won't do those things so I said this instead: "No, tell him to come, but you can also tell him that he's going to give me time to get me and the dogs out of the house. If I drive into a tree, I just drive into a damn tree." I then hung up on her.
I went downstairs afterwards and began harnessing my dogs. I was cussing and carrying on so much at that point that I scared my poor dogs to death. They didn't even want to get in the car, and they always want to get in the car. The car for them is the doggy equivalent of Disneyland.
Given what had happened Friday, I decided to sit in my car until the realtor showed. I refused to go sit in a dark, Walmart parking lot for an hour if the SOB wasn't even going to show. I sat there until 8 p.m. until I finally gave up. Once again, it seemed like another realtor was standing me up.
I went inside. I took the dogs' harnesses off. I took food out of the fridge. I turned on the stove. I began cooking, and guess what happened. The jerk showed up at 8:21 p.m. By that time, it wasn't just getting dark. It was dark, and I had food cooking. Cooking, not cooked, not about to be cooked, cooking.
I think I had a momentary nervous breakdown at that point, a breakdown that only got worse when the guy's client started knocking on my window at Bailey. Do you want to know what happens when you knock on a window in a house full of dogs? The dogs attack the window. The dogs come dangerously close to falling or breaking through that window, and the dogs' owner starts thinking that jail wouldn't be so bad if she could just hit whoever is on the other side of that window.
I was livid and quite possibly homicidal. I turned off the stove. I harnessed up the dogs. I turned off the alarm, and then I chewed the realtor a new one. I informed him that he was nearly an hour late, that I had sat in my driveway for 30 minutes waiting for him to show up, that I had finally given up and began cooking dinner, and that I was having to leave that food on the stove half-cooked because he was a completely inconsiderate human being.
He mumbled something about getting stuck in traffic--funny, I don't remember there being that much traffic "outside my neighborhood," where my realtor claimed he was an hour prior--and then began talking in another language to his client. That just set me off worse. There he was, on my front porch on a Saturday night, an hour late, and he had the audacity to start talking about me in another language. Nuh-uh. The least he could do after being that late and that inconsiderate was talk about me in English.
So I slammed the door. The stupid lock box got stuck in the door jam so I had to pull it out of the way and slam the door again. It wasn't nearly as effective as a one-time slam, but it still got my point across. Then I said, "Since you're so inconsiderate, you can use your own key to get in." I heard him muttering something else in another language as I got in the car. I don't know what it was, but it made me even angrier.
After hooking my dogs into their seat belts, I watched him walk into my house and...get this...leave my front door open. That's right, he showed my house with the front door open in the dark on a Saturday night in April. Do you want to know what you get when you leave a door open in Georgia under those conditions? Not just the potential for any random stranger to walk in your house and lay in wait. You get mosquitoes. Swamp mosquitoes to be precise.
I came home 20 minutes later to a house full of them and a dinner that was completely ruined. That's when I made the decision that the gloves are permanently coming off. No more feigned politeness. No more common pleasantries. From now on, Little Miss Snippy Pants gets Staci the Uber-Bitch and no one else. If she doesn't like it, then she can let me out of my contract, and I'll find someone who doesn't mind having a bitch as a client or who at least doesn't think that it's appropriate to show a house at 8:30 at night.
I also decided that if Little Miss Snippy Pants ever tries to send someone to my house again after sunset and doesn't take "if I drive into a tree, I drive into a damn tree" as a "no, they can't come," I'm calling the police the minute the agent tries to walk in my front door.
UPDATE: So 5 minutes after I hit publish, LMSP calls. Typing her name must be like saying Candyman or Bloody Mary five times. It summons her. Great... Anyway she says someone may show my house tomorrow at 11 a.m.
I said, "Fine."
She then says, "Well I just wanted to give you a heads up. Is 11 a.m. going to be okay?" like suddenly she now cares.
I said, "Eleven is fine. 8:30 at night, however, is not. That's what time he showed up Saturday."
"I know. I tried to call you and tell you he was lost, but you were already gone."
Here is what I thought: Lady, I was already gone because you told me he was outside my neighborhood at 7:30 p.m. Lady, I also have a cell phone, a number I know you know because you called me on it Friday. Did you call that? No. Did you even leave a message on the house phone because I went in and checked at 7:55? No.
This is what I said: "I wasn't gone. I was sitting in the driveway waiting for him to show up since you said he was outside my neighborhood. I sat there for 30 minutes, and when he didn't show, I went inside and started cooking dinner. I had to leave my food on the stove."
"Well, I know it's a pain, but we just have to hope we get an offer out of it."
"It's not a pain. It's inconsiderate. I...had..food...on...the...stove. If I was married with children or had a job, I feel you would consider my time valuable, but since I don't have either of those things, you feel like it's okay for someone to come anytime they want."
She neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. Instead, she said, "Well, I just wanted to give you a heads up about tomorrow."
Her inability to respond to what I said set me off again. "Do you understand that I could have children and be getting them into bed at that time. 8:30 p.m. is not a reasonable hour."
Again she acted like I didn't say anything more than, "Cool. I can't wait." She responded, "Well, she's supposed to call before she comes so I'll let you know."
Like I'm going to hold my breath on that happening. "Fine," I said bitterly and hung up. I didn't say good-bye, bye, or thanks. Those are sentiments I save for people I like. I don't like her.
