“What do you mean?” I frowned, as Ka moved to finally put dinner on. Apparently during my “flat selling” speech I started rabbiting on about how handy we were for the Number 20 and the number 66 buses, perfect for those bus trips further into East Kilbride or a day out in the city.
It’s a good selling point, I pointed out to Ka. Being close to a decent bus stop would be a great advantage to some people. The viewer may have a tight monetary situation and may not be able to afford the luxury of cars and taxis everywhere. The bus could be their one form of transport, for all we know. The bus is always handy for us when we fancy going into town for a wee pint, so why not to a potential buyer?
The rather unimpressed, bored looking viewer had brought her Mum and Dad along and left after only five minutes in our humble abode. She walked in through the hallway into the living room and commenced her long tour of the flat from there, seeing the kitchen, the living room again, back out into the hallway to the bathroom, out into the hallway before hitting the bedroom, back to the hallway where she took a quick look into the utility cupboard, the hallway again and then the living room again. On her way out she walked through the hallway again. Our home of six years overviewed within the space of five minutes.
The girl who was the main viewer was one of these girls not happy in the skin they're in.
Her big eyes stared, white in a face of browny orange. One of these strange people that, not being happy about the skin they are born with, like to artificially colour their skin by lying in plastic beds of luminous tubes or stand in those plastic portaloos that have no loos but have spray guns in their walls instead. The people that use these devices actually pay for that weird orange/brown colour with which they use to go out on a special occasions. What possesses these people to believe that a special occasion of any kind requires you to colour your almost naked self up in a strange sh**ty brown colour. I’ll never understand that.
Yes, okay, I understand a slight tan. Something to enhance the complexion or contrasts of the skin, get away, be it momentarily, from the Scottish peely wally tones. But that weird overly orange/browny colour? Why?
If it was some kind of camouflage, then yes, I would understand. If these girls, and blokes (yep, blokes do do it as well don’t they) were going paintballing or something then yes, the reasons for painting yourself browny orange would be fairly understandable. You could dive about the forest and probably have some success in hiding out in the foliage. In fact, judging by some of the spray tans I’ve seen in the past, you might be better off simply walking about a paintball site naked to get a bit of colour about you.
I just don’t get it. Why would you want to go out on the town or walk down the aisle with the skin colour of an Oompa lumpa?
The three visitors were pretty hard going. Ka and myself done our best to chat and inform, but the three of them didn’t say too much.
The Mum did seem to like it whereas the Dad looked bored, as if he’d been forced to attend by a firm look from the wife or an arm twisted up his back.
It’s always so difficult to tell whether these potential buyers like what they see. We’ve always had positive feedback from the estate agency after the viewers have reported back but it’s never been so positive that they’ve bothered to put an offer in for our wee home.
We’ve only had a grand total of four viewers the whole time we’ve been on the market. The estate agents, that seem to have only recently really started doing anything for us, (let’s call them ‘Your Maneuver’), gave us a quick phone today to tell us the viewer was taking her interest no further for the not wholly unreasonable excuse of a lack of gas central heating in our flat. Apparently somebody had told her that the underfloor heating that was built into these flats is expensive to run. Someone had also told her that a flat further down the street had sold for a slightly lower price and that that particular property had been recently refaced. All the while, I sat on the other end of the phone, listening to what the someone had told this girl, wondering who this ‘someone’ was. I bet it was her Dad.
Either him or her boss, Willy Wonka.
I thought she may have been informed of the lack of central heating before attending a viewing, by our wonderful estate agents. Ka and myself have survived without gas central heating for six years, using only the old, underfloor heating in the deepest, darkest depths of winter and we’ve comfortably survived. We’ve certainly never had to sit and watch X-Factor with frosted glasses and icicles hanging from our nostrils. Our flat’s always seemed pretty cosy in actual fact, and rarely feels cold in anyway (even in X-Factor conditions).
We’ve certainly never had any complaints from any visitors. It’s probably all the hot air.
Saying that, I did notice, the last time they were here, that some of Ka’s pals’ kept their jackets on. In fact, Ka and her pals’ teeth were also chittering in between talk (between talk is very brief, wondrous moment and you have to be very quick of the eye to notice such an instant. We once got a phonecall from David Attenborough at the BBC to film such behaviour. Women with their mouths closed. Amazing. Unfortunately Mr Attenborough couldn’t find a camera with a high enough shutter speed).
Still, at least I was allowed in the flat last night.
Everyone in work was having great delight in making me feel extremely paranoid and slightly guilty yesterday after I rushed Ka off the phone when she called on the mobile mid morning.
“I really can’t talk just now. I’m busy. I’ll call you later!” or something of the kind, I said rather urgently down the phone, before wishing her a hurried goodbye.
Apparently Ka thought she’d upset me by the tone of one of my texts five or ten minutes before when she hadn’t at all. I’d sent an abrupt text back to her in response to one of her messages which she’d sent at one of the busiest periods of the week, when all our Ayrshire property adverts were being sent to print. I had been, in fact, winding her up about the excited babble she was producing the night before about David and his watermelons.
As it turned out, it wasn’t David at all anyway. It was Johnny. Johnny and his watermelons. I’m still no clearer and suspect I’d have to watch ‘Dirty Dancing’ in all it’s musical glory to understand, but that’ll not happen any time soon. I’ll just have to struggle on through life in blissful ignorance regarding Johnny’s watermelons.
Anyway, as a result of Ka’s call at work, I was sure I’d upset her and everyone in the work, led by DVD Andy and Dave, were sure I was sleeping on the couch that night, if Ka allowed me into the flat at all.
Sitting in work I was pretty confident though. There was no way Ka could give the sales pitch all by herself. We done our best, for the fourth time, but to no avail. I may need to consider re-evaluating the sales pitch.
I don’t know. Perhaps try not to look nervous when the neighbours are mentioned, attempt to draw my eyes away from any inflamed skinwork and maybe even reduce the amount of the No. 20 mentions. Either that or just install some gas central heating.
That viewer obviously likes heat.
And the sun. Be it the artificial spray gun version.
There’s a professional tanning salon in the Village. You could easily jump on a No. 66 from here to get there. It’s just five minutes down the road. Hmmm, I’ll maybe write that into my next sales pitch.
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