My sister-in-law doesn’t read this site, so I can say: I hate realtors.  There’s a particularly annoying couple on the advertisement of a bus bench I always pass on the way to work.  They’re a husband and wife team, and they have good cheekbones, nice teeth, and shiny yellow hair.  I wouldn’t have voted for them as prom king and queen, so why the hell would I want them to help me with a real estate transaction?  No, you can’t have my 6%, but here’s a nice colostomy bag.

Then there’s another couple on a different bus bench and they make a point of mentioning that--I’m not making this up--they take ballroom dancing lessons, and therefore they’re “realtors in motion.” What the hell does that mean?  I don’t want realtors in motion; I want them to help me buy or sell a house.  Twirl your way in front of the bus that’s coming to pick up the people who are currently squashing your faces with their butts.

I’ve also seen the realtor who helped me get my own place on bus benches, but she doesn’t have her husband in the picture and she doesn’t talk about ballroom dancing, and also every year her company sends me a gift certificate for a box of See’s candy and a magnetic fridge calendar, both of which I like.  So she’s okay and she gets a pass.

I guess technically I’m drawing a distinction between good, sophisticated, knowledgeable realtors and those who advertise on the back of bus benches. But let’s get real.  You could easily start to draw a similar distinction between good, sophisticated, knowledgeable lawyers and those who peer at you from your TV screen and ask if that fender bender you were in last week gave you whiplash--but ultimately, it’s a wasted effort because everyone hates lawyers.*

*Except the ones in my immediate family who do read this site.