So I’m holding an open house in a nice part of town. The house is of the Tuscan variety with multiple bedrooms, a pool, a basement with a 1,000-bottle wine cellar and many custom features. Traffic is brisk as the listing just came out. In walks a lady holding on to a slow moving elderly woman with a cane. They tour the first floor and come around to the basement door. Come on mom let’s go down to the basement, she says. I’m thinking, IS SHE NUTS! Oh no thanks honey, I’ll wait for you here, answers mom. Oh come on mom I’ll be right in front of you, it’ll be your exercise for the day. Mom starts down, wavering to and fro as she sticks her cane on the step blow, not knowing weather grasp the railing or her daughter. I say with some urgency, WO THERE, are you sure you want to take your mother down there? She must be 90 years old! Why not, she’s in great shape and besides she’s 94, she replies as they proceed down the bottomless hole. 94, well that’s different, I whisper cynically under my breath. I get increasingly concerned. But your honor she looked in great shape, I picture me begging the judge as I’m prosecuted for murder. I pace nervously in front of the basement door, peaking into the beyond once in a while, listening for signs of life, ignoring people I should be watching as they wonder the house. Let em’ steal the jewelry; I could have a dead mother on my hands here! Finally I hear heavy, labored breathing and see the lady emerging with mom in tow who is grasping the cane like it’s the Holy Grail and looking like she just made it to water after 40 days in the desert. Thank God, I’m thinking…very relieved. Ok mom let’s go check out the bedrooms upstairs, she says merrily. NOW WAIT ONE DOGGON SECOND LADY, you’re not taking this poor woman up those stairs, there’s no doctor here!, I react reflexively. She looks up at me and declares with pride, I happen to be a professor at USC medical school and I AM a doctor. Honey I got to sit down now please, chimes in the old lady. You see, I say, you see. Ok, ok, she says reluctantly as we help her to a chair. This little lady raised 40 foster kids back east, and I was the first one, so she’s a strong one, she asserts. Wow! Where back east?, I ask softening a bit. She tells me. I tell her that it so happens that I grew up in the town next door. Turns out we went to the same high school for one year. How about that! We exchanged cards and she promised to call me when she’s ready to buy. The moral; speak up when you perceive a wrong because strong passionate energy will often lead to positive outcomes.
Mori Biener, GRI, CRS
South Bay Brokers
Mr. Neighborhood of the South Bay
310-418-9188
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