Yesterday

Last updated: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 12:01:00 GMT

Life seemed such an easy game to play.

My mother called me at work, yesterday. She has recovered from the news that I'll not be stopping off in Australia on my way to New Zealand, and so she won't get to see her grandchildren this year.

"What are you up to?"

I looked down at my hands on the keyboard, back up at my displays and replied, somewhat surprised, "I, uh, I'm watching Tron and programming computers ... so, uh, I guess that's everything I dreamed for myself was I was ten. Except that I didn't get to go to Cambridge. I should be pretty happy."

I was happy, yesterday. Today, not so. No one reason in particular. No sleep. The heat is keeping me or the wife or the kids awake at night. Letting stuff get to me.

As I type, a surveyor is poking around my house, looking for ammunition for the arseholes who're buying my house to throw at me.

When I engaged my estate agent, I explained to them that I didn't want to show anyone around the house. I've done it before, I find it uncomfortable. If I wanted to sell houses, I'd be an estate agent myself, so I could earn £45K a year by sitting around doing jack shit, too.

In general, I hate selling things. I hate bartering. I hate arguing over a value. I always come away feeling that I've lied, or that I've just been screwed. I hate job interviews for much the same reason.

I really hate that thing that buyers do, that tyre-kicking buyers do. I'm sure they think they're being savvy. They wander round, pointing out every little flaw, telling you everything you've done wrong, everything they don't like about what you're selling.

But everything I sell is priced at what it's worth. I rarely speculate with a high cost in order to be beaten down, or to see what I can get away with. Perhaps that's why money's too tight for steak? I am a shockingly bad businessman.

They spend all that time bitching, so that by the time they come to the nitty-gritty, you'll feel like they're doing you a favour when they offer you five grand less than you're asking.

That works real well with me, oh, yes. It's not the first time I've told someone that they're free not to buy, free to quit wasting their time. I once sat in on a test drive, selling my girlfriend's car, and listened to the guy grinding the teeth off every cog in the gearbox.

"There's something wrong with this gearbox," he said.

"Stop the car," I said. No sale.

My estate agent has been hassling me for four days now, because my buyers apparently want to meet me face to face. They want a second viewing of the house, which is fair enough, but they want me to show them round. This is cool with the estate agent, because it means that they get to sit on their big fat behinds and do nothing, yet again, before they claim their 1% of the sale price.

But it's not cool with me.

I've tried to explain, every day since Monday, that I have no desire to meet the buyer. I get the feeling that the agent isn't trying too hard to pass this on, because they're lazy. They want the sale, they want someone else to do the work. I had to give it to them straight this morning: no meeting.

"But, but, but, what if they insist?"

"Then they're free to buy the house, or not buy the house, their call."

Thing is, my sister showed these guys round the first time, so I know what they're about. These guys are the tyre-kickers I've been avoiding. They spent half an hour bitching at my sister, telling her what a dump the place was, asking her retarded questions and then being downright rude when she couldn't answer. Then they came back with a low-ball offer.

What's under the laminate flooring upstairs? Uh, what do you think? Marble? Gold? The last dumb schmuck that asked that question?

All in all, I think I have a better chance of selling the house if I don't show them round.