Nightmare Real Estate Tour

This past weekend my husband interviewed for a job in Duluth, MN. It was a fantastic weekend, really.
We toured schools, went to museums, played at the waterpark in our hotel and ate some terrific pasta.

On Saturday morning we were schedulued to meet with a real estate agent who would take us on a tour around Duluth to show us different neighborhoods that we might eventually be interested in moving to. Except that the real estate agent forgot to pick us up at the hotel. In fact, he forgot about us entirely. After waiting an hour, we called him, and he zipped over, apologizing profusely, beating himself up over the head over forgetting. The man was a nervous wreck. We tried to put him at ease, but he kept on apologizing and apologizing, saying he’d never done this in thirty years of real estate work. We really didn’t care and tried to assure him of that. Things were actually going well. He had a DVD player in his monster SUV, and both of our kids were zoned out (amazing) and we were having a great time driving around Duluth.

When I say this man drove a monster SUV, I mean it was gigantic. It was practically a bus. It was as big as the government surplus van my old high school used to cart us around to extra curricular activities in. I was in the front, Dr. Pediatrician in the middle and the kids in the back. Around corners, up and down hills, we zoomed along the curvy streets of Duluth. And I began to get car sick. I didn’t mention anything to anyone because I thought it was ridiculous. I haven’t been car sick since age 7, while driving on a gravel road to Carrington ND to take my Grandma Edna out for Mothers Day. I was convinced my stomach would settle down if I only just stopped thinking about it. But after two hours of curvy driving, I really, really was car sick. Finally as we chugged past a shopping mall I croaked out “Stop the car! I’m carsick!” The driver of the leather seated SUV screeched to a stop in a Wendy’s parking lot, and Dr. Pediatrician managed to open my door and pull me out onto the concrete right before I vomited no less than five times, narrowly missing my own shoes.

Dr. Pediatrician was concerned. (It later turned out that HE was feeling just as carsick).

Ms. Crazy Preschooler was worried.

Mr. Cuddles took a nap.

And the poor realator was just beside himself. Was he driving too fast? Too slow? Too bumpy? How could he help? I couldn’t get the poor man calmed down for the life of me. Vomiting doesn’ t phase me too much, but it really unnerves some people.

I am sure when he was finally done with us that he went home and had a colossal nap. He was a nice guy, and if we do move to Duluth, we’ll probably use him as our realator. I can’t imagine that he’d ever forget us. We’ll just say, “Hey, remember us? We nearly threw up on the leather seats of your monster SUV!”