Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

Learning the Ropes

3:28 PM

Beverly Cortwright and Norma were riding around about twenty miles south of town, looking for property, when Beverly spied an obviously homemade HOUSE FOR SALE sign nailed to a fence. Beverly’s eyes lit up. “Look at that, Norma.” She quickly turned the car around and drove back up to the fence and stopped. Down a long driveway and set on a pretty pine tree lot stood a little neat brick house that looked to be in pretty good shape. Beverly was excited. This house must have just gone on the market in the last few days, because it had not yet appeared in the multiple listings book. Beverly read that thing every morning like a racing form. She knew the details of every property listed, and most of the time had seen the place before the realtor’s open house. She was a master at getting in to see the listings before anyone else, and today was no exception. Norma was still a greenhorn and still a little uncomfortable barging into people’s homes, but not Beverly. Before Norma knew it, Beverly had driven up the driveway, stopped in front of the house, and was busy rummaging through her large purse for her tape measure and camera. She always had the purse with her wherever she went in case of an unexpected real estate spotting. Beverly was always prepared.

“Come on. We need to see this, Norma,” she said as she got out of the car.

“But shouldn’t we call first?” said Norma as she reluctantly got out of her side of the car.

“No, I find it’s best not to,” Beverly said as she walked up and pushed the doorbell. “You’ll find out soon enough, Norma. In this market, you can’t stand on ceremony.”

She pushed the bell again and leaned down and looked through a window.

“Oh, here comes somebody.”

An older man opened the door, and they could hear the sounds of a football game on the television set inside the house.

“Can I help you?” he said.

Beverly immediately flashed her two-in-one surefire real estate smile, apologetic yet friendly at the same time. “Hi. I’m Beverly Cortwright and this is my friend Norma. We are so sorry to bother you, I know this is a terrible thing to do to you on a Saturday, but if it’s at all possible, we would just love to take a quick peek at your house. I said to Norma, this is one of the cutest houses I’ve seen. It is just adorable, and if you will just let us run in and take a look, I promise we won’t be but just a few minutes.”

The man was hesitant. “Well, it’s kind of a mess right now, and my wife is not home.”

But Beverly, the old pro, had already stepped inside the door. “Oh, don’t you worry about that, we’re used to that, we just want to see the layout, and take a few pictures.”

The man reluctantly said, “Well, if you want to, I guess it’s all right.”

“Oh, thank you so much, you just go back to your game and don’t pay any attention to us,” she said as she headed toward the kitchen.

“Don’t you want me to show you around?”

“No, you just get on back to what you were doing.”

“All right, then,” he said.

Beverly was a woman on a mission; within ten minutes they had covered the entire house and taken pictures of each room. After Beverly had finished measuring the second bedroom, she said to Norma, who was taking notes, “Twelve by ten, small closet, wall between could be knocked out.” After she had flushed the toilet and run the water in the bathtub, shower, and bathroom sink, she said, “Water pressure’s good but I don’t like that tile.” As she walked, she threw comments over her shoulder at Norma. “Hate the fake wood paneling. Nice double-hung windows throughout. Original floors. Kitchen needs updating.” When they were ready to leave, Beverly stuck her head inside the den and addressed the man in the BarcaLounger. “We’re done, but can I ask you a few quick things?”

The man turned down the volume and said, “Sure.”

“Are you on septic or sewer?”

“Septic.”

“When was the house built?”

“1958.”

“How much land do you have here?”

“About five acres.”

“Ah, and do you know if it could be subdivided or not?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t.”

“Well, thank you so much. Oh, wait a minute, I almost forgot the most important thing, how much are you asking?”

The man looked puzzled. “For what?”

“The house.”

“The house? This house isn’t for sale.”

Now Beverly was confused. “Has it already sold?”

“No.”

“Then why do you still have the sign up?”

“What sign?”

“The sign on the fence out there.”

The man looked at her kind of funny and said, “Lady, that sign says HORSE FOR SALE.”

As they drove out, they took another look at the sign. It did in fact say HORSE FOR SALE.

Norma was horrified at what they had done. “Oh my God, that poor man, he must have thought we were crazy, running through his house like that. Here we tromped all through his house, opened closets and everything. Flushed the toilets, opened all the kitchen drawers. It’s a wonder he didn’t call the police on us.”

Beverly said, “I guess I was in such a real estate frenzy I’m starting to hallucinate. But look at it this way, Norma, at least he has my card and if he ever does decide to sell, we got the jump on RE/MAX.”

“Still, I feel terrible, that poor man. He was so nice.”

“Yes, he was, but he can afford to be, he’s not in the real estate business. You know what they say, don’t you, Norma? Real estate agents never die, they just remain in escrow forever. Isn’t that a good one? I made that up myself.”

No two ways about it, Norma was learning the business from the bottom up.