Expletives Deleted - Wednesday

The rain is travelling horizontally into my face as I battle towards the car park. Sometimes I wish I could jettison my man of the people credentials and not be compelled to, occasionally, do the crappy unwanted jobs. A viewing with a time-waster in a monsoon didn’t get many volunteers, so magnanimously I volunteered, just to prove I’m not above these things. I’m an idiot.

‘Nice day for it.’ I say to a young girl forlornly shoving a pushchair through the puddles. She looks like she should be at school, but clearly bunked-off the lesson on contraception. And they wonder why there’s not enough affordable housing - try finishing the Girl Guides’ badges before giving birth, maybe?

The drenched teenage mum just scowls at me suspiciously. It clearly wasn’t the charm school she periodically attended.

‘I meant the rain.’ I say as she passes me, wheels on the buggy veering away from my path. I get a soggy scowl in return. Perhaps she knows I’m an estate agent? Either that or has me pinned as a weirdo, loser type - about the same now I come to think of it…

As I wait, kerbside, to cross the road to the bleak-looking park I hear an engine revving. Instinctively I step back just as a sign-written Mini, sweeps towards some standing water. The cascade of oily airborne puddle, rises like a surfer’s wave and dumps several gallons at my feet.

‘Bastard!’ I yell as the car sweeps past, a smarmy-looking face at the condensation streaked window, grinning malevolently. I’ll pull a couple of his For Sale boards down later. Probably… 

Halfway across the park I loose my footing and slide like a geriatric Bambi towards a park bench. My back wrenches audibly and a sharp stinging pain radiates down one leg. I should have pulled rank and sent trainee F.

‘F***ing shoes.’ I shout angrily, just as an old lady, bent double, shuffles in to my peripheral vision.

‘What was that love?’ She asks, rain dripping from her whiskery chin.

‘Just cursing the weather.’ I say with a sheepish grin. Fortunately she appears half deaf, so the actual curse seems to have passed her by, which is what I do before she decides to stop and talk. Thats the supermarket checkout operator’s job.

Another malicious gust of wind whips up spent leaves and possibly the odd syringe, as I pass the bleak toilets block with those unhelpful ultraviolet lights that might make it difficult to find an unblown vein to shoot-up, but also guarantee you’ll miss the urinal and piss on your already soggy shoes.

I can feel the milk of human kindness curdling by the time I reach the car park and start searching vainly for where I left the motor. Water is trickling down my neck, the clipboard in one hand is as slippery as an A4 eel, and the leather soles on my favourite brogues are drawing up moisture as eagerly as a desiccated dromedary at an oasis. Then my mobile rings.

‘What the f**k now?’ I bellow into the storm clouds, another swear box penalty despatched cheaply into the ether. The office number is flashing insistently at me. If those tosspots have cancelled the viewing I might actually combust - it it wasn’t for the unfavourable ignition conditions…

I stab a damp digit at the screen and get negotiator S’s dulcet tones. My blood pressure falls slightly.

‘Are you at your car yet?’ She asks softly. I stare around the rainswept tarmac, spaces too tight together for half of the lumbering Chelsea tractors sat there, while the yummy-mummies shop. The only chance of the four-wheel drive ever being engaged on 95% of the vehicles, will be if this weather lasts for another month

‘I’m just about to find it.’ I say, irritation rising. My hand instinctively goes for my trouser pocket as I imagine another forlorn walk round the pride of Germany’s motor industry, blipping the remote angrily while trying to spot some hazard lights winking in recognition. Last time it was the wrong car park.

‘You’ll need your keys - that are in my hand.’ Says S apologetically.

F**k. F**k. F**k.

---------

Merry Christmas Everybody - Wednesday

‘I can’t hear myself think.’ Shouts a colleague I haven’t exactly pegged for a an intellectual mind. He staggers on, slopping a pint of gassy lager as he zig-zags towards the free bar. I’m back at the corporate Christmas party and the music is too loud, my dinner suit too snug. It gets tighter each year. I get less tight. The thought of how my head will be thumping in the morning outweighing the lure of limitless alcohol - another reminder I’ve been doing this too long.

‘F**k, there’s some amazing totty in here.’ Shouts assistant manager T, who has appeared at my side as if on castors. His pupils are widely dilated behind the designer glasses. I’m not sure it’s just beer doing that.

‘If you can’t get screwed tonight,’ Continues T with an unpleasant leer. ‘You haven’t got a pulse.’ He pauses and waves at all the young women in bright party frocks, then adds: ‘Or a penis.’ Before wobbling away.

I’m in the seventh circle of hell, only with a smarter dress code. Like most people, I don’t like mixing with estate agents if I can avoid it. This pulsing mass, dancing to what might be drum and bass, but could also be the digital equivalent of a needle stuck in a groove, are making me yearn for a quiet night at home with a lime and soda and some catch-up television. And to think I once tried to climb inside the PA rig at a Stranglers gig.

‘I’m going to shag something tonight.’ Slurs another voice, breaking in to my ear-buzzing melancholy. I look up to see M, my fat finance man has appeared, glass in hand. His stomach is battling to break out of a straining cummerbund and he’s waving towards the table where the Human Resources - or is it People Division now? - ladies are sitting.

I read a survey recently, stating those in accounts and personnel where the most likely to have sex at the office Christmas party. Odd, because our lot spend the other fifty-one weeks of the year trying to shaft us anyway. You’d think they’d want a rest.

I’m tempted to point out the objects of M’s ill-directed ardour are rumoured to be lesbians, but before I can, he slurs. ‘They might be dikes but that chubby one looks like she could be turned.’

I should be reporting him for this, but as he’s heading that way I think I’ll save myself an email and more grief.

‘Here goes nothing.’ Chortles M, as he departs towards a probable disciplinary and a shed load more paperwork. ‘I reckon I can get her back on the straight and narrow.’ Judging by his progress and the likely outcome, nothing is going to be straight and the only thing narrow, as his lardy arse departs, is his mind.

‘You not drinking?’ Enquires a disembodied voice, and for a moment I think I’m hallucinating, or maybe the strobe light has set off some sort of previously unreported fitting session. But I eventually realise H, my vertically-challenged rival manager, is looking up at me. Gin and tonic in each hand.

‘Pacing myself.’ I tell him.

‘Eh?’ he bellows , on tip-toes.

‘Never mind.’ I reply, only to find he’s disappeared towards the dance floor, where I spot S, my negotiator, looking achingly beautiful in a red frock. If he touches her, I might commit some sort of dwarf related homicide that would actually, briefly, make me happy…

Now, as the music jolts from unknown noise to the cheesy Christmas favourites, I feel pressure in my bladder. If I break the seal I’ll be pissing all night, but I can’t resist the pressing need. En-route to the gents’ toilet I pass the bean counter boss, sat at his table with a gaggle of his odious followers. I haven’t seen such uncontrolled fawning since Bambi took to the ice.

‘Condom machine is empty.’ Shouts some young buck I don’t recognise, as I’m greeted by the heady stench of urine and David Beckham after shave, in the toilets.

I’m too old for this shit.

--------

Festive felicitations to everyone, thanks for reading and may your chosen deity be with you.

S.A.

Batting For Both Sides - Tuesday

To a corporate day out at the cricket, I’m only going because the guy in Land and New Homes had a better offer, but gift horses and mouths. And yet even as I walk through the gates and flash my all areas access pass the long-buried punk rock, angry socialist feelings regurgitate like a bad kebab.

I wrestled with my conscience for years, particularly through my first property recession when the repossessions came thick and fast. I felt a bit better when I snatched back a flat a fellow, but dodgy, agent had mortgaged to the hilt. To fit the stereotype he’d sub-let illegally, hadn’t made any payments, taken the tenants money, then stripped all the fittings out days before the bailiff and I arrived. Even so, I still feel I shouldn’t be there in multi-million pound homes, or executive boxes with a dozen braying hoorays. There is a free bar though…

‘Champagne sir?’ Asks a comely waitress as I shake a few hands and apologise for the fact I’m a stand-in guest. I nod and smile, then detect a briefest flash of distaste from the girl as I grab the long-stemmed flute, dripping with condensation, and gulp down the bubbles. She’ll have to work on her facial expressions if she wants to make it in sales. The pavilion clock shows a shade after 10.30am.

‘So how’s the second hand market doing?’ Asks a hard-faced, yet curiously attractive, woman from the Developers footing the bill for the gig. She’s dressed in power skirt and jacket combo and will be thrown out of the ground if she walks on the pitch in those vertiginous heels.

‘There are deals to be done if buyer and seller are realistic.’ I tell her with a stock phrase from my mental basket of answers.

She laughs. ‘Yes, people are always bleating about the market, but we are shifting plenty of new units.’ I nod a non-committed response. ‘The trouble is the lenders are too picky on who they’ll advance to, then their valuers carp about the price.’ She continues, then pauses and looks me up and down. Briefly I wonder if she fancies me, until she says. ‘Has it always been like this?’ It must have been the bubbly. I’m as delusional as 75% of vendors.

Come the lunchtime break I’m wondering round the public areas, legs Bambi-like from free booze and not enough vol-au-vents. It feels good to be back with the public. Momentarily, I’m tempted to buy a sweaty looking hog roast in a bap, but I move on. I’m a man of the people at heart, I think, until I see the snaking queue for the gents’ toilets. I head back to the cordoned off area, nodding convivially at the dayglow-jacketed bouncer on the gateway. He gives me another unguarded look. Probably seen which box I’m in. I decide he’s one of those House Price Crash doom-mongers who sit in the same room they’ve occupied in the parents’ house for the last forty years, stalking message boards exchanging prophesies of meltdown to like-minded men in their pyjamas – all waiting for homes to become affordable.

‘There are winners and losers in all walks of life.’ Pontificates a sweaty-browed lawyer I’m sat next to on the balcony, as the number three batsman departs for a duck.

‘The trouble with all these people whining about property prices is they’re not prepared to graft.’ Continues the man, turning towards me and blasting a garlic-laced typhoon of bad breath my way. I’ve said something similar myself; after all it was never easy. But still, like the chilli and rice I opted for an hour ago, it doesn’t sit well with me. Like the time I tried to set up are new home router, I realise I’m not that good at networking. I want to go home.

‘How much introduction fee do you get from the conveyancing firms you recommend?’ Asks the lawyer earnestly, revealing his true interest in proceedings. We’re not supposed to take any secret profit without reporting it to our client nags the inner voice from a long distant man who studied the Estate Agents’ Act.

I have his business card – just in case.

----

No hidden fees, just cheap as chips on Amazon, the satirical property ebook:

http://amzn.to/ttGZ4j

US Readers: http://amzn.to/vXpFJf