The Peeping Tom

Thursday afternoon. I'm home sick, hanging around in my underwear, talking to my real estate agent on the phone about real estate type business. I look out the front window and up pulls a white mini-van with an Asian couple brandishing cameras. They pop out of the vehicle and begin enthusiastically photographing the river.

This isn't entirely weird. The Muskoka River is beautiful and worth photographing on any day, no matter what the weather, but today is particularly beautiful. The sun is shining, the sky is brilliant cyan and the dark blue water is shimmering with winking diamond light.

Then I realize they're also photographing our house.

Feck, I think. This always happens when I'm in my underwear.

I go to our bedroom, which is in the back of the house, figuring I'm safe, and keep talking to our agent.

Movement catches my eye. I look up and into the face of the smiling round-faced man, who has waded through snowbanks around our house and is now staring at me through my bedroom window. He nods, then keeps walking.

"There's a man looking in my window!" I say to the agent.

"A what?" she says.

"Hang on," I say breathlessly. "I've gotta put some pants on." As I drop the phone I hear her say something like, "You were talking to me without any pants on?" but I don't have time for explanations. I dig through my drawers and pull on a pair of capris leggings, which nicely show off the fact I haven't shaved my legs since Dave went out west. They look like furry tree trunks.

When I pick up the phone, our agent is ordering me to do something. She is very businesslike, which is why we hired her.

"Go stick your head out the front door and tell those people if they want to look at your house they have to talk to me."

"Er," I mumble, thinking of my furry legs.

"Go!"

Our agent is 5 feet tall, probably at least 60 years old and weighs 90 pounds soaking wet but I admit it, she freaks me out.

I go to the front door and do as I'm told. The man says he tried to get the agent but there was no answer. I tell him I'm talking to her right now and hand him my phone.

Me and his wife look at each other and smile and make awkward conversation. She is slim and well-dressed and smart looking. I am sick and have no bra on and my trees, er legs, are furrier than the trim on her winter coat.

After a couple of moments talking about the beautiful weather and our beautiful trees (lucky for both of us she gestures to our towering spruce trees), I ask her where she's from.

"China," she says.

"That must have been quite a drive, getting here today," I say, straight-faced.

There's a swift beat of confusion on her face then she starts to laugh. "Barrie!" she says, referring to the city an hour down the road. "We live in Barrie!"

Anyway, our agent came out and showed them around the place while I took a drive into town, fully dressed with furred legs encased in denim, and bought me and the dog a doughnut.

Apparently the nice couple from China liked our house and were going to talk to the bank about financing. That, however, was Thursday and we haven't had an offer yet. We've had a showing every day this week but no offers. With that kind of traffic I'm hoping that an offer will be coming soon.

On a different note, I had to put word verification on the commenting process. I was getting all kinds of nasty, rude, shocking, sexually explicit spam so even though I hate word verification, I really didn't have a choice. I understand it drives a lot of people crazy – heck, it drives ME crazy – and I sincerely apologize. If you don't comment, I will truly understand.

Happy Sunday!