House for Sale


If you want to sell a house, even if it’s your own house, you have to “stage” it. Any real estate agent will tell you that there are so many things you need to do to your house to make it “sellable”. You have to get all of the stuff off the kitchen counters so that the room looks bigger. It’s like the people buying the house don’t realize the massive amount of space you waste by having a fucking toaster. Oh my God! We could have had another child! But, sadly, we just didn’t have the room, what with all the space the fucking toaster takes up!

You have to take the pictures down so the potential buyer can imagine the room with their pictures. They can imagine their own pictures on the wall, but they can’t if your pictures are there. It’s too much! “We can imagine a bunch of rectangles on this wall, but… oh crap. There are already rectangles there! We’re screwed! I can’t see anything now. “

Real estate agents come in and tell you to paint this, and fix that and move this, and you think, “Great! I get to pack fifteen years of life into an endless sea of cardboard boxes, make four hundred and seventy two trips out to a truck carrying said boxes, move all of this shit and then throw it all away when my wife decides that we really must buy a new this and a new that. Not only do I get to do all of that, but I get to do your fucking job, too!”

Gasp! There’s a light bulb out in the upstairs bathroom! They’ll never buy it now! Because we all know that whoever buys this house will never have a day when a light bulb goes out! It’s just you… because you are a terrible person.

But, the day will come. The day you finally sell your house. You laugh, you dance, you cheer. You drive down the driveway for the last time, and you wonder, “Have I done the right thing? Maybe we should stay.” Idiot.

Ah, but, it’s too late now. You are on your way to the lawyer’s office to sign over the ownership to the new owners. The lawyer has drawn up the bills of sale, the escrow documents and all the rest of the forms you could buy in a booklet at Staples for $17.95. And, he’ll only charge you $6,000.000. The lady that takes your forms to the Tax Assessors office gets at least a C note, and everyone else who has their hand out is there with big smiles. I think home buying is second only to a wedding when it comes to how many people are in line to get paid for your continued happiness.

At long last, the deed is done. It’s time to secure your next dwelling. But, when you go hunting for a new house after you’ve convinced some other couple that your cave-like dwelling is actually a spacious palace because you hid the fucking blender, all of the previous pain will melt away. It’ll be like childbirth, where you only remember the parts of the story that make a good story.

You find that you have become one of those people. One of those people who just can’t tolerate anything less than perfection. “I’m sorry, sir,” you’ll say. “We would love to buy your charming little home. It’s perfect for us, really. But, dear man, we just can’t. Because, you see, you have… dare I say it? You have a… a can opener! On the counter!

Good day to you sir!”

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