My morning and late afternoon was spent showing rentals here in Mason City as well as Clear Lake. Judging by the number of inquiries, there’s certainly a shortage of good housing between our two towns. I had to laugh when one of the prospective tenants actually said, “I’ll be happy to rent it, but you’ll have to buy new carpet for us.” Questioningly I asked, “Why new carpet? You can see there’s nothing wrong with it.” Oh Mercy! The reason they wanted new carpet is because the color wouldn’t go with their furnishings. I almost said to them, “If you want a different color of carpeting, then you can pay for it including the cost of installation as long as it’s the same quality that’s here right now.” That sort of request was a first for me.
It amazes me when finding people coming from other parts of the Country having such high expectations from our area landlords. Perhaps they consider us hicks and willing to bend over backwards because they’re “city slick”. What I really don’t “get”, is knowing how much cheaper the rents are here compared to where they’re coming from, yet they expect all the more for less.
The first hour of my public open house at 103 – 28th St. SW was dead, but when 2:00 pm arrived, there was a stream of visitors up to and after 3:00 pm. I do hope today’s showing made a big enough splash with the buyers still out there to where we’ll be seeing more activity and the subsequent sale of it. At its current price, there’s not another in Mason City that can compete with all the extras it offers.
While chatting about this and that with one of the attendees, he mentioned something about a very bad accident he was in not so many years ago. My curiosity invoked the question, “What happened?” The more he told me about his car accident, the more I began having non-stop goose bumps. After telling me the number of breaks and punctures he received all over his body, I couldn’t help but say, “There’s definitely a reason yet to be revealed as to why you survived.”
What impressed me the most was his up-beat attitude as well as appearing about as normal a man could be for his age without any thoughts of something over-the-top life-threatening having happened to him. He did mention the number of doctors who believed him to be something of a real-life character out of that popular movie, “Unbreakable”.
With a few hours to spare late this afternoon, I decided to attend an area church that wasn’t far away to where I happened to find myself close to the beginnings of Services. The readings were meaningful and the music was fine, but what made me thankful for attending, was seeing an elderly lady whom I’ve known for a long time, but haven’t talked to for as many years.
When their Services finished, I made sure to catch her walking out. After asking about her general well being, and where she’s now living, I was delighted to hear her two children purchased a twin home for her about 12 years ago, and she absolutely loves it. Knowing what her job was while in the workforce and how hard she worked, I couldn’t help but say, “You absolutely deserved it, and your children are going to be twice blessed for doing it for you.”
Now, how many semi-wealthy children of elderly parents do you know that would do something like that for a parent or parents? What I normally see are their aging children doing everything they can to get what little their parents have before, along with after their deaths. Unfortunately it’s the sign of our times, and growing all the worse. If you should happen to hear or read something after someone’s parent passing, “Check please!”, don’t pay any attention, because it’s just the ways of our times.
