Guest Post: By Mom

(Migillicutty: BTW, my Mom is a realtor)


I took the boys with me show houses the other night....well really afternoon, but we went at 3:00 and it starts to get dark at 4:00 so it felt like night. Migillicutty was babysitting and it was the only time all day I could take this woman to look for rentals. So I decided she would just have tolerate the boys. She's actually not my favorite client and I wouldn't mind if she ditched me, which she may in fact do after our exciting evening.

In general they were wild and crazy, climbing on things and jumping off of them, throwing rocks trying to see if they could put a whole in the screen that was laying on the ground in the yard at one house. They are completely out of practice behaving with me in public and I am out of practice disciplining them in public because for the last few years I have been able to leave them at home with Migillicutty. Which is so much better!

Finally, we were leaving the last house. It was about 5:30 we had been to 5 houses the boys were crabby, the client was beyond crabby, my feet were killing me cause I'd been wearing my fabulous cute new patent leather shoes all day long, but I was trying not to be crabby because seriously, that never helps anything. And that's why when Thelly mysteriously broke the water pipe that leads to the sprinkler box and it started spraying water five feet in every direction right outside the front door, I didn't even yell or scream or attempt to discipline him in anyway. I just threw my keys and papers as far as I could onto the driveway and jumped in; cute patent leather shoes and all.

The worst part was the it took a a good three minutes standing in the spray, tugging and pulling on the sprinkler box, which I never could get open, before I realized that the box I really needed to be opening to turn the water off to the whole house was down by the street, completely out of the way of the impromptu fountain.

But the good news is that I did figure it out, I shut off the water to the house and then I called the listing agent on the house to tell her what had happened. She didn't answer. I left a message. We took the client home and as I was dropping her off she told me that she didn't want any of the houses. Never mind that the house she is living in has been foreclosed and she is going to be evicted any day and she is a section 8 renter-that means the government pays her rent-and she is going to loose her section 8 voucher if she doesn't find a new place to live by Monday and I had just showed her five houses, four of which were perfectly nice. But whatever! We needed dinner so we headed to Costco for pizza.

Remember the part about how I didn't beat Thelly for braking the pipe by doing I have no idea what, but I'm sure it was something he shouldn't have been doing? Well that was mistake. Because 30 minutes later after having ordered our pizza I was using the bathroom at Costco when Scaffy opened the emergency door and set off the alarm.

I kind of forgot not be crabby after that. I mean I wasn't really super crabby, cause I just don't even have enough fight left in me for much in the way of nastiness towards children; it never helps. But I did develop a new mantra which I repeated for the rest of the night "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" Don't touch the cart, don't touch things on the shelves, don't touch your brother, don't touch the water fountain, don't touch the floor, "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" Why are you touching the freezer door? Didn't I tell you "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" Isn't that pineapple something? Then why are you touching it? I said "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" It was a good time.

After we were done shopping and we still had a few minutes to wait for the pizza I decided to play hang man with them rather than continue to rant. Guess what the first puzzle was? Yeah, Scaffy got it right away too _ _ _ 'T T_ _ _ _ _ _ _ T_ _ _ _!

-Migillicutty's Mom

P.S. The agent called back and said they had a handyman who would be working on that property over the weekend anyway, so I don't need to worry about the pipe. They are taking care of it. I assured her that I was happy to take responsibility for the damage but she insisted that it was fine.

P.P.S. The client called and said she is reconsidering a house that I showed her a few weeks ago-the dirtiest, stinkiest house of any that I have showed her which also happens to have the highest commission of any rental I have ever seen. It's the only 5 bedroom we've seen that will accept section 8, which I guess is why she wants it. We'll see if she changes her mind again but if not I may have to take back all my negative thoughts about her.