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March 20, 2007
Welcome to the Neighborhood! Here's Your Fine
As many of you know, I don't live in St. Louis City proper. I live in St. Louis County, which is comprised of hundreds of wee little municipalities, all with their own government, police forces, and rules. It's a great way to combine all the downfalls of city life - traffic, noise, pollution, overcrowding, and crime - with all the downfalls of suburban/small-town life - busybodies, petty bureaucracy, and Barney Fife wandering the streets with his bullet in his pocket.
My municipality's population hovers around 4000. While we have plenty of big-city problems, like the illegal, unlicensed tattoo shop across the street, it seems that the insignificant small-town issues take precidence.
Yesterday afternoon I sat in my dining room with a super-secret craft project spread all over the table, when the phone rang. It was my real estate agent, once again proving that he's not exactly as competant as we had hoped. Seems that he had called and left a message yesterday morning that some people wanted to look at our house. Unfortunately, he didn't call our phone number - any of the four phone numbers he has for us. Instead, he called another client and left them a message. So, somewhere, another client was doing the House Prep Panic Dance while I sat on my happy crafting ass in total oblivion of the real estate agent and potential buyer outside my house.
At least they had the forsight to call my agent and tell him that I was home, instead of just busting open the lock box and coming right in, thus giving me a scare that there isn't enough Klonopin in the world to undo. My agent then called me and told me the situation. No problem! I went outside, told the showing agent and potential buyers that all was well. Ignore the clutter; I've been packing, and there's a big project cluttering the table. I'll be in the backyard with my dogs. Take your time. Buy my house. Please? Please please please please please please please?
Five minutes after I settled into my Adirondack chair in the yard, the agent hollered, "We're finished!". Now, my house is only 970 square feet plus basement, but there's no way people can view it in that short amount of time. Thanks for interrupting my day.
A few minutes later, B. arrived home from work. Since our neighbor, the plumber, was outside, B. came in just long enough to tell me he was going back outside to ask the plumber for some advice on fixing our leaky bathtub drain. That's where he also got the skinny on why the potential buyers made such a hasty exit.
Seems that, during their mere five minutes in our neighborhood, a member of our fine, illustrious police force opted to give them a parking ticket.
Um, yeah. Remember last week when the garbage truck couldn't get down our street because the dunebuggy builders had 4927 cars parked on the street? Oh, but these were strangers! They must be punished!
I would understand if they'd, say, perpendicular parked across my street. Or perhaps if they had a live crack whore for a hood ornament. But a ticket for a car parked slightly illegally for five minutes? It's a good thing Sgt. Fife's bullet was in his pocket, otherwise we'd all be dead for such a horrid offense.
Something tells me that these potential buyers won't be making us a sweet offer today. Just a hunch.
Posted by Robin at March 20, 2007 09:22 AM
Comments
if i didn't know you, i would think you made that up... can you imagine what those people were thinking?
"maybe we should come back another day to finish looking at the place?"
"no honey, this is a sign. a BIG sign."
i'm not looking forward to house selling. not one bit. and you aren't helping. :)
p/s - the first challenge is up at the million blogs for peace space. i was delighted to see you listed!
Posted by: kara joy at March 20, 2007 05:21 PM
p/p/s - you do know that pepsi stuff in your pic is the devil, right?
Posted by: kara joy at March 20, 2007 05:22 PM
I would call the city and complain about it.
Will I see you Saturday, with all your checkbook-toting friends?
Posted by: allison at March 21, 2007 05:39 PM
Is it time for us to start considering arson yet?
Posted by: Dixie at March 22, 2007 06:31 PM
