The Trouble with Maine

Hardly anyone lives in Maine. This explains why there is no traffic, and almost no crime. It's quite relaxing. Of course, the flip side is that there are few professional standards, certainly not enough to go around. All the women look like moose and all the men smell like fish, so if you decide to move here you'd better already be hitched and have a job.

Besides those warnings, another one is that it's tough to buy a house here because none of the real estate agents have a lick of sense. They never answer their phones or return calls when you leave a message. They are rarely available to show properties. It's sad, really, for all concerned.

Today I was scheduled to see a house at 12:30. It was a firm appointment I made with an agent two days ago. He knew I would be driving some distance to meet him, and yet when I arrived, the house was dark with no sign of life. I had given the agent my phone number in case of any emergency, but he did not call. Finally, after waiting long enough for a college professor were I in college, I called his cell and he answered--a fact that is important for the story--and said he had spent the morning "out in the sticks with no cell service" and couldn't call to cancel, and could I meet him tomorrow instead?

I then asked if he was still out in those same sticks and he said yes. I asked why he was out in the sticks when he had an appointment in the city and he said he wasn't sure. I asked if he had cell service yet and he said "probably not."

Oy.