I'd rather walk through hot coals in a chicken suit…wearing a sandwich board," Ted, an agent friend of mine, once told me, "than sit an open house."
That sounded a bit overwrought considering we were , at that moment, greedily wolfing down a plate of Angel's onion rings, barbeque sauce and grease slathering our faces like finalists in a rib eating contest.
"Really? Hot coals? Chicken suit? Come on, Ted, a sandwich board?" I asked skeptically, blotting my face with a beach sized bar towel.
Ted nodded. "Any day of the week." He worked a big fistful of rings into his mouth and herded them into the corral of one cheek. "And twithe on Thundays," he added.
My friend's aversion to open houses may be extreme but, as I later discovered, the general sentiment is not.
I don't know one agent who looks forward to sitting houses open. It's like being placed under house arrest for no satisfying reason. You're trapped, isolated and criminally bored. Although open houses are part of the salesman's craft, agents go out of their way to avoid them. They push them to the back of their schedules like stubborn children shoving lima beans to the back of their dinner plates. They make excuses, book root canals, feign insanity
A nagging sort of discomfort commences with the signing process. You catch the flicker of a hostile hand gesture through the glare of a passing car's window while packing your signs with the big arrows across a busy intersection. Sure it could be meant for someone else.
As you anchor one sign to a snow stake with a length of bailing wire the shouted advice to "get a real job" issues from a second car followed by "do you want to get knocked out?"
Guessing that you're the target of these remarks reminds you that people don't like salesmen. Don't trust them. Come to think of it, you're not all that fond of salesmen yourself.
They call at awkward hours hawking credit cards, magazines, and charities. They show up at your door pedaling vacuums, cosmetics and religion. If you give them your name they're harder to shake than last winter's head cold. People need salesmen like they need dentists, mechanics and even lawyers, but they don't like them.
With your signs finally in place, you sprint for the opposite curb chased by a leering fat man squealing toward you in an army green pickup. An "I Brake For Realtors" sticker on the rusted bumper as the truck clatters by. You pretend to weed the sidewalk strip until the coast is clear.
Once safely inside your chosen property, and certain you haven't been followed, you lay out promotional fliers, business cards, real estate magazines. You settle onto the couch and snap on the TV. Then you wait. And wait. And wait some more.
It's the weekend. Outside people are biking, roller blading, throwing frisbees. Laughing. You think about your wife playing tennis in that skimpy little skirt that shows too much thigh. The club pro a tanned, notorious Lothario. But you're stuck. You pace the floor, chain surf TV channels, and shuffle through a stack of old client cards so cold they could ice down a charley horse.
Finally, after waiting for hours, sagging toward a catatonic stupor, you are jolted to life by the electrifying sound of car doors, footsteps. The door bell! You round up your wits and greet the couple with a practiced smile, a fresh business card and crisp full color flier.
Maybe it's the glimmer of interest you detect, or maybe it's just the mind numbing hours of waiting, but suddenly you are filled with enthusiasm. Suddenly, you see virtue in every aspect of every room. How could you have missed it? Yes, look how the bedrooms are laid out, cunningly separated by an intervening hallway! What a brilliant insinuation of privacy. Look!
You become intoxicated with the place, dazzled by its hidden magnificence. You parade your audience from room to room—some rooms twice—trumpeting a litany of attributes, gesticulating wildly like a wino conducting a phantom orchestra. The condo is wonderful, fabulous, perfect! Maybe you should buy the place yourself.
But just as you're about to hold forth on the drywall texture and toilet paper holders something catches your eye. A look on the wife's face. Skepticism? Well, you've seen that before. You can deal with that. No. It's something else. A look of…fear. Why, the wife is cowering behind her husband's shoulder and you notice for the first time they are an older couple. It appears that you've been chasing them. Indeed, you've cornered them in the only bathroom. Have them pinned against the shower door.
Trapped they huddle together, alarm growing on their faces, staring at you as if you're some mugger. Wondering whether to reach for their wallets. The husband sneaks a hand back to test the door.
My god, what are you doing? The prospect of having to coax these sweet old people out of the tub moves you to action. You take a step back. Call up an innocent school boy smile. Ask, "can I add you to my mailing list?"
Relieved they produce pens and scraps of paper scribble names and addresses. "Here," they shove these offerings at you and escape.
Back on the couch you calm yourself. You've got their names. You'll make it right. A nice friendly letter. Maybe a fruitcake or box of chocolates. You read the gum wrapper and ticket stub. 'Harry Herenot' and Doris Donegone'. Perhaps it wasn't their first open house.
As the tortuous hours grind by you phone a friend at another open house.
"Anybody?"
"One pair. A bathroom call. Husband came up for the brochure. 'Thanks a lot,' he said in a big hurry. I hollered after him 'For Pete's sake turn on the fan.' How about you?"
"A couple of names."
"Watching golf?"
"No, Gladiators."
So you wait, watch American Gladiators, glance out the window, think about food, that busing job at McDonalds. Against all odds there is another knock. Now you're ready, poised, reserved. You give this couple a nice tour.
"Just the one bath then?" the wife accuses, clutching her collar to her throat as if to seal out some contagion.
The property flier wilts in you hand. "Yes, you admit sheepishly.
The husband and wife exchange glances and regard you cooly. A note of condescension creeps into their voices. An element of pity.
"Well it's a good sized bath," the husband offers. As if to suggest maybe it was not your fault after all. More like you were the unwitting, yet pathetic, product of inbreeding—close set eyes, feeble intellect, a propensity to drool.
Recovering your professional equilibrium you ask, "Would you like to see something in the area with two baths?"
The couple sprout grins. "Oh no. No, we own a nice two bath unit across the street. But we'll take one of your cards."
It's at this point, with the female gladiators straining at their bungee cords, their impressive busts on the verge of freeing themselves and assaulting someone, the otherwise healthy contestants looking by contrast anemic, steroid deficient, helpless, lashed to their bungees. It's at this point, with the score tied, that you snap your business card from the husband's hand and march the couple to the door.
"There's no need to take my card. It's okay. I understand." Somehow you resist the almost overwhelming impulse to drool.
Turning back to the set you see Vixen (or Voluptua or Vesuvia) wrap her beefy thighs around the dental hygienist from Oklahoma. As they swing out of range of any scoring chance, Vixen pumps her fist in victory and the hygienist goes as limp as a cotton tail in the coils of a gopher snake.
You've had it. Enough is enough. Tomorrow you're going to do something more productive with your life. Tomorrow you're going to hold open a condo with 2 baths.
Then again, maybe you'll just fire up some coals and borrow Ted's chicken suit.
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