After having placed many miles on my vehicle this past week, I discovered it in need of another fill-up early this morning before venturing any farther because I’ve never been in the liking of a gas gauge tilting below a quarter of a tank. Of course once again I had to go inside the station to get my receipt because they still hadn’t installed a new roll of receipt paper at that pump. The last time I was there, I said to the manager, “I’m getting tired of having to come in here to get a receipt for the gas I paid for at the pump.” In a sarcastic voice he replied, “That’s because we want to see you mug every time you get gas.” Of course I wouldn’t let it go when kicking back, “Well, maybe I don’t like seeing your puss.” I normally wouldn’t have said anything if he hadn’t used the word “mug”, and his response being just a weak excuse for laziness.
Before heading off to my all-day project, I figured I’d better hit an early church Service, or I’d likely be having some pangs of guilt for not fulfilling my Sunday duty. As much as I tried to get there on time, I found myself about three minutes late, but thankfully they were still standing and singing which made me less noticeable when walking down their side aisle. The moment I seated myself, I found they had their air conditioning cranked down to a point where it felt like 65 degrees, and unfortunately I had dressed all the lighter for once.
There really wasn’t much about the Service that was worth sharing other than the leader of song having changed the posted recessional hymn from an old standard, to a syncopated newer-age religious song, and of course very few of the congregants were singing. I did notice the pastor starting to walk out before the first verse was over. I could speak about some of the reasons many of our main-line churches are loosing their old faithful, but I’m coming to believe I might as well save my breath to cool the soup.
When I got back to the office, I returned a call to one of my clients who called late last night. They wanted to look at a home later today, so I sent a message to the listing agent asking if I could show it. She later texted me back saying I was good to go, so I then alerted my clients to meet me there at 4:00 pm.
After getting my clothes changed, I went and grabbed some supplies and tools and headed off to the beginning of my more than an all-day project of cleaning up after a naughty monkey who believed he had the license to leave a house in a far less acceptable condition than when he moved in.
The first thing I started with was getting the overgrown trees and bush branches cut and hauled away, and the sidewalks edged back to where they were supposed to be. Believe it or not, there was at least six inches of growth on each side of the sidewalk leading to the garage. Of course the gutters were full and growing a good crop of volunteer trees. For sure they hadn’t been cleaned in years. I am glad I took several hours off on Friday to go over and mow because it took me about and hour and a half to mow it, but if it had been mowed like it should’ve been by the exited tenant, It wouldn’t have taken half as much time.
With over half my day taken up by that yard, I headed into the house and spent another three hours vacuuming the woodwork, baseboards, windows and sills, and all the heat registers and cold air returns. When I pulled up those cold air returns, I was shocked to see the tall layers of dust. Thank goodness I have a canister vac with a very long hose which reached far enough to remove those mats.
After getting everything vacuumed on the main floor, I headed up to the attic and went over the entire floor. It irritated me greatly when seeing how dirty it was up there because that’s a fully floored one which is tall enough to stand up, and for sure most people would give their eye-teeth to have one like that for storing their seasonals. For storage, I’d take an attic over a basement any day of the week.
By the time I finished the attic, I discovered myself nearing the time of my showing, so I high-tailed it back to my office so I could do a quick cleaned-up and get my clothes changed. Since it was an out of town home the buyers wanted to see, I called to tell them I’d possibly be ten or fifteen minutes late depending on traffic.
Fortunately I made it there only 8 minutes late which gave me time to do my own walk-thru while turning on all the lights. By the time I had it presentable, they arrived. They gave it a good look-over, and I could tell they weren’t excited about it. A few minutes later their parents arrived, and they had their own tour. We went back outside and visited about the house and the over-all market conditions in that community. Turning to the mother I asked, “What do you think of it?” She paused a moment and then replied, “It’s quite unremarkable.” Oh goodness! I certainly got a good laugh out of that, and promised her that I would use it when necessary because that’s about as kind as one can get without naming faults or dis-likes. What a remarkable way of expressing negative thoughts about something.
Tonight’s one-liner is: It’s natural for a child to assume that his or her own childhood is unremarkable.
