Day 29
We had a showing last night at 5:30 pm. A second showing! It was a Sunday, a very busy and irritable Sunday. I awoke at 5:30 am to get everyone to my son’s hockey game. We piled into our car for what will be the first of three times today. I passed out juice, apple slices and pop tarts. I remarked to my family how wonderful it would be to see the sun come up, trying to set a positive mood for the day. My husband then doused my happy moment by informing me that we’d be at the rink before we see the sun… Bummer!
The Baltimore Stars (my son’s team) lost to Metro in a very heartbreaking game. We were up 4-2 with 3 minutes left in the game. They eventually lost 5-4. Driving the knife in deep when they scored their winning goal with 17 seconds left in the game. My talented son did have two goals! Yeah, way to go. Ok, get back in the car!
So, we piled back in and got home around 10:45. Almost ready to clean, I had to make sure my family was feed so I whipped together an early lunch of BLT’s. I might as well clean off the bacon grease from the stove too. Ok, smellly hockey players showered and now playing video games, it was time to clean. I think I was finally done by 3:00 pm. That was a lot of cleaning, making beds, picking up and folding of laundry. I even disassembled a tent. When did she put that up? Wow, I had really let the house go since the last time we had a showing, when was that… really… only a few days ago?
The last frontier was my shower. To clean it and sooth myself with streams of hot water. On my way, I grabbed a beer. It was Sunday and a football game was on somewhere so I figured I deserved it. Finally Done! I think I actually got to sit down for an hour. I wanted to give relevance to my beer by turning on the football game, but my son was too busy killing things with his Wii. So I watched him destroy the enemy and rested.
5:30 and time to pile the two kids and the dog into the car and give the buyers the space they needed to marvel at my immaculate home. I figured we’d drive by a house that was for sale near by, check out the exterior and the location, phone in a take out order for pizza and subs, drive to get the food, then head home. The whole experience should take about 40 minutes. The previous “second showing” we had lasted that long, so why not this one? We were ready! My daughter had her Nintendo DSI, my son his PSP, my dog his bone and my husband and I our conversation and music. We were all set. By the time we got to the pizza place it was pouring down rain and extremely foggy or froggy as my daughter used to say.
With hot pizza and subs now on my lap (packed car, no where else to put it) we started our drive home… Or should I say by our home. They were still there. Ok, let’s just circle the block. “I’m hungry” I heard whined from the back seat. “Me too” piped up the other one. We drove by again. Still there. We decided to drive around a few minutes more by checking out an area of the neighborhood where we don’t venture too often. Down windy roads, twisting, turning, checking out the houses. “Wow, why don’t we buy that one Mommy” I heard as my daughter pointed at a modern mansion that must have been 6,000 square feet. “Oh sorry, no honey, that one is too expensive.” I told her. “But what if it was for $20 could we by it then?”
“Let’s see where this road goes.” “Yeah, turn here Dad.” “OK, now lets go this way.” We started to wander aimlessly. Then I chimed in… “Wait… Should we turn here? I don’t think we came this way… I don’t know where we are YOU’RE driving! It’s too damn foggy I can’t see the road. Watch out for THAT DEER!
We… were lost. We were 5 minutes from our house and we were lost on account of fog. We actually contemplated parking outside of a house where there 52″ was visible through their window. The game was on!
“I’m really hungry,” “I’m tired.” my kids moaned. “Don’t worry we’ll find our way back, they’ve got to be gone by now.” my husband said. Eventually, we found our way out of the labyrinth of fog and drove by our house again. They were still there! It had been over an hour, what are they doing in there? How long do they need? Don’t they realize its a Sunday night and we have kids? I have to feed them, bathe them and get them ready for bed. This is ridiculous! Why did we agree to a Sunday night?
By now all the heat from the pizza had been transferred into my jeans which made my legs all sweaty and clammy. My husband started to turn the radio up to drown out the sounds of dueling PSPs and the incessant and repetitive background music from my daughters’s Nintendo DSI fashion game. When she started yelling in a language that I’m sure wasn’t English and crying. I tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry honey, we’ll be home soon” I said. “NO its not that, I can’t figure out this game! She wants a camminensoul-a”, exclaimed my daughter. She continued to pound away at her Pink DSI. “Ella, what are you talking about?” I asked. Now crying in frustration, “She wants to buy a C-A-M-I-S-O-L-E and I don’t have one.” “Oh a camisole. Ella, it’s like a tank top.” I said. “Well, I’ve SHOWED her every top in the store and she’s NOT HAPPY! and she WON’T LEAVE!” …Well my beautiful daughter… need I say more.
Frustrated and loosing patience we parked on the street next to my house and waited. My daughter was still bemoaning at her pink machine. When the adults LOST IT! My husband and I started yelling at her, “put the damn game away if it’s going to make you cry. And if you don’t stop it this instant we will take it away from you and smash it on the road!” My son’s stomach continued to growl which was audible over the whirling sound his PSP was making. He started to whine “I’m hungry and I just want to go home”. That was it! I was so done! (Remember we’ve all been up since 5:30 am) they were burnt out and famished. I was sick of sitting in this car and I needed a martini!
OK, so screw the people! 5 more minutes and we are going home! They have to understand we have children! 5 minutes later we drove with all intentions toward our driveway… then… drove passed it. I guess even with uncontrollable and whimpering children we just couldn’t jeopardize the potential sale of our home. Our kids now totally drained had to only suffer another 15 min when we got the text from our agent that they had left. Praise Jesus!
When we got home, my kids collapsed on the couch. Yet they still managed to have the strength to turn on iCarly. Our food was cold and my lap smelled of pizza. I turned on the oven to reheat our food while our agent was putting on her coat to leave. On her way out, Roxie informed us that the people wanted to bring a contractor by at 6:30 the next night, but she refused! God love her! And we settled on 8:20 the following morning. Well, at least by then the kids will be at school. If these people don’t give us an offer soon, I’m going to have to start charging them admission!
