Great First Impressions

I'm a real estate agent. I just thought you should know that. I'm going to put it out there in case anyone wants to use me for my mad house buying skills. (or selling for that matter. I'm good at both)

Anyway, a friend of a friend has asked me to help she and her husband buy a house. I agreed. This buyer and her husband, who we will call "Mr. and Mrs. Awesome" met me at a house yesterday afternoon so we could take a look at it. Now, you have to know that up until this moment, I had never met Mrs. Awesome face to face. Mr Awesome and I met several years ago, but not his wife. But I feel like I've known her for a long time, I really respect her, and I didn't want her to think I was a mental patient. I wanted to be "super effective real estate girl" and show her my house savvy and showing expertise. Basically, I wanted to make a good impression.

I am clearly setting the stage here for disaster. Wait for it. . . .

All was going well, until we went in the back yard and looked around. There was some talk about my bulimic child, some talk about the serious hedge trimming needed in the jungle of a backyard and then we moved on. But not before I noticed a definite poop smell. I looked around, but couldn't see anything so I chalked it up to the fact that we were walking by the trash can.

Proceed to more talk about the random chimney coming out the west side of the home and the spidery basement with a very large and very suspect weed growing INSIDE the bottom window. And there again, was the wiff of poo. At this time, Mrs. Awesome lifted her shoes to look at them, but they were clean. I said that I suspected the trash. I assume she believed me. Or maybe she thought that I had farted and was blaming it on the trash. Who knows. But I bet she didn't. She is, after all, awesome.

After she and likewise awesome husband are done looking at the home, I tell them there is a paper I want them to have and so we walk to my car. It is at that time, that Mr. Awesome says the first complete sentence of the afternoon. (previously he was communicating in mono-syllabic responses, head nods and shoulder shrugs) His words to me? "You hit a land mine"

I thought he was talking about my car, which was my brother's car I was borrowing for the day, and I was worried he was saying I hid something with it. I was worried. But oh no, he pointed to my shoe where a very obvious and very squishy dog turd was still clinging to BOTH sides of my brand new shoes. Brand new, $100 running shoes that took me 3 weeks and many returns to find the right fit and style I wanted. (I have to order shoes online because I have what Marcelo calls "patas" meaning animal feet. THANKS HON!! oh, and THANKS MOM for the large foot gene you passed down)

I don't have lots of money. These shoes were a sacrifice. And they are now completely wrapped in poo. Going up the sides of the shoes, in the bottom nooks, crannies and crevices of the tread. THERE IS POO EVERYWHERE. And I am humiliated. How else can this appointment go wrong? Can I maybe fall down and put my hand IN the poo? Can I lock my keys in the car? Can I do my Chris Rock impression and be racially offensive? Let's try our best to make a total spectacle of ourselves now, Alicia!

I go over to the grassy part of the front yard (hard to find because there is much lacking in the landscaping) and try VERY UNSUCCESSFULLY to get this dingle-berry off my shoe. It is not cooperating. I look silly, feel stupid, and want to just crawl in my car and die. And then I notice that Mr Awesome is digging around in the trunk of his car. He comes up with a plastic bag and says, this is for your shoe. MR. AWESOME!! YOU SURELY LIVED UP TO YOUR NAME TODAY!!! And that's not the end of it. He goes over and finds a wood chip on the ground and then tries to talk me into giving my shoe to him so he can scrape the poo off of it!!!!!

Can the humiliation never end? My client is trying to scrape the poo off MY shoe? Absolutely not!! I told him that I would just take off my shoe and drive home sock-footed. He didn't want to let it happen. I think he was moments, seconds away from crouching down on the ground. I seriously had to get out of there!! Next he was going to tell me that I should wear his shoes home so I wasn't driving with just a sock!! I have to flee!! Which is what I did. In one shoe. But not before I told them right as we parted that I was just lucky that it didn't get anywhere else. (like on the cuff of my pants)

But then I discovered some things when I got home:

1)This turd was the size of Texas. I think it was from like a great dane or maybe several dogs all pooping in the same spot. It must've been the size of a grapefruit. And how did I miss it? Because of the really tall grass. Did you miss the part about how the back yard was a jungle?

2)I did get it on my pants. But not on the cuff. On the back of my calf. How did it get there? And before I found it I was traipsing all over my house, and picking up my baby and sitting on chairs with the poop pants! UGH

3) I went home and started scrubbing my shoe, and I pulled about a half a cup of poop out of my shoes when I got home. And not just poop, but leaves and grass and small rocks. I gagged several times. I scrubbed those little tread crevices for what seemed liked hours, and the poop still didn't come out. I used toothpicks in the grooves, and the stench of poo was still there. Seriously, how did I not see a pile of poo that big?

4) After doing all that I woke up this morning and I went to look at my shoe and found that it was STILL smelly. After all that! So I gave up and threw it in the washer. (Thanks Sister In Law Tina for teaching me how to wash my running shoes in the washing machine!) And then I threw the other shoe in there as well for good measure. And everything I was wearing yesterday went in too. Because apparently that poop has magical powers and can leap from my shoe to the back of my pants and then from there who knows?!?!? It's better safe than sorry. DAMN YOU MAGICAL POOP!!

The point of the story? If you want to impress your super Awesome clients, just be aware that deceptive and thwarting poop will make you look like an ass every time. Guaranteed.

And if you hire me as your agent, I JUST MIGHT put on Act II of the "Great Poop Caper '09". Maybe this time I'll get BOTH shoes. Just you wait and see.