Don’t Open the Box
Summer is off to a good start. The first week it pretty much rained on and off, just enough so the kids couldn’t go to the pool, I had clients who walked away from a death-trap-money-pit house and the Pro-Terz clan went to another Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Sort of.
It’s not really like the movie. This wedding was Real Estate Dad’s nephew (I can’t call him my nephew because he and I are closer in age than me and Real Estate Dad) (I don’t always get married, but when I do, I prefer them older) (Stay thirsty, my friends.) Anyway, there wasn’t much big and fat about the wedding. They didn’t have a large bridal party (thank god because am I the only one who hates the dozens of drunken introductions of people no one knows?) The bridal party was just a few of their closest friends. The reception was outdoors.
We were 2 hours late because: traffic. I’m sure I’ve spent more time in my life sitting in traffic in that painful stretch of the last few exits before the Bay Bridge than in all the world’s 7-11’s combined. Unfortunately for us, we disappointed Bowie. We did not get to the church on time so we went straight to the reception.
Princess Roundhead and I were milling around the various tables they had set up with pictures and guestbooks and such. We came across this nice little carved wooden box the size of a shot glass. Princess Roundhead was like, “Does this open?” I said, “I don’t know, let’s see it.” We were both grabbing at it and fiddling with it and she was like, “I want to know what’s inside!” It appeared to slide but also it could have lifted like a lever. She tried. I tried. We couldn’t get it open.
The groom came over and said, “Ooh, guys don’t open that.” We looked up like, “Buddy we’ve been working on this thing for a full five minutes and you want us to abandon ship now?”
He said, “There’s a person in there.”
Well crap. A sign or something would have been nice, because they invited the child I call “a Bull in a China Shop” and her relentless mother. Actually, the child wasn’t really invited but that’s a whole other story. I’m not good at following directions. Or getting places on time.
I went over to tell Real Estate Dad how our daughter and I really could have gotten ourselves booted out of the whole shindig and I swear to you, that man does not let the truth get in the way of telling a good story. He buzzed around the entire reception like god damned Sophia Petrillo, telling everyone that his wife and eldest daughter almost set the bride’s father free.
By the end of the night, the Greeks were coming up to me howling, “DID YOU HEAR WHAT YOUR DAUGHTER ALMOST DID TO THE BRIDE’S FATHER????” Yes, because a) I WAS THERE and b) WHERE THE HELL IS PROAKIS. RIGHT. NOW.
He took his little one-man act over to the bathrooms. Because these were the bathrooms.
If this van’s a rockin, don’t come a knockin
Real Estate Dad could not resist. When the girls or I were in here, he went running to the back like the bad kid in the back of the school bus and pushed on the side so we would rock back and forth. A few drinks and a shot of Ouzo later, I enacted the payback.
When he came out he said the vase of flowers tipped over and everything fell off the walls.
The second week of summer was better. We have a new Summer Nanny who is Chubs’s old Year-Round Nanny and she never calls in dead to work! I had two buyers close on houses in week 2 of summer, other clients get a super cute house under contract, and a few other buyers lost houses. Real Estate is still plugging along.
Today we started week 3 of summer by finding a paralyzed squirrel. He got away from us (don’t ask) but we’re going back out to look for him. Poor guy.
