At
the age of three, my brother was outside one afternoon building a sandcastle
and fielding bids from developers to subdivide it into condos. In the midst of
this flurry of activity, he spied the family cat, Sam, from the corner of his
eye and noticed that the Siamese was in need of cleaning. (How he determined
this “need” is still an open debate at family gatherings.) He scooped up the
filthy feline beneath his arm and started toward the house. (Most cats choose
the time and place that they’ll allow a human to pick them up, and this is
usually done with both arms cradling them. So,
being
hooked under the midsection with a small and somewhat-less-sure arm was surely
an affront to this cat’s dignity.) My brother entered the house and made for
the bathroom.
Kicking
open the bathroom door, he noticed the air was warm and steamy – someone had
already run a bath. Happy day! So, he slid open the glass door on the bath
enclosure and discovered my dad was already in the water with soap bubbles
floating on the surface – someone to whom my
brother could
delegate the cleaning chore and get back to the sandcastle and developers!
Gathering his wits about him, my dad greeted my brother and asked if there was
something he needed. My brother simply looked at him, cat still squirming to
get free from his captor’s devilishly tenacious grip, and said, “Sam needs a
bath.” Before this could register in my dad’s brain, my brother flung the
helpless feline into the water with my dad and summarily closed the glass door.
This
little family vignette touches upon a number of issues: real estate
development, early childhood education, animal rights, hygiene, the fact most
grown men won’t admit to indulging themselves in the quiet and therapeutic
pleasure of soaking in a tub – my dad will probably kill me for telling this
story – and the need to have a fully stocked first-aid kit readily available
when you have small children around. However, the most interesting thing about
this story is what it tells you
about yourself
in the real estate process.
1. Concern
for the cat:
If your thoughts went immediately to what became of the cat after being tossed
into the tub with a naked man, you tend
to be someone who’s attracted to the purchase side of things; you want to
resolve the situation quickly and with the best possible outcome.
2. Concern for the son:
If
your thoughts went immediately to what became of the boy, you tend to be
someone who’s attracted to the listing/sale side of things; you want it off
your hands as soon as possible and want the payoff.
3. Concern for the dad:
For
those precious few who found immediate concern for the dad, you tend to be a
loan officer – someone neither the cat nor the son thought much about before
everything hit the water but looked to him as the savior of their needs.
4. Concern for who has to clean all this up:
Obviously, anyone who made the natural leap to the mess the chaos would leave
behind is in title and escrow.
With
all that said with tongue firmly planted in cheek, there really is a simple but
very important lesson to be learned here.
When everyone does their job properly – and doesn’t try to do more than
that – the transaction is clean and closes on time. What you do with the family cat and/or the
bathtub after the transaction is closed is completely up to you.
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