Fake Shui

I've decided that a house is kind of like a child. Your child. You note the imperfections, but you find them charming. Who wouldn't fall in love at first sight? And all cleaned up and sparkly? Our house had on its Sunday best. Who could resist?

Our agent was bubbly. Though we'd gone against her wishes, and priced it a little high, she wasn't worried. "This house is going to go!" she proclaimed. We just weren't going to get full price. She was sure of that.

We had open houses every Sunday. The people filed through. They ate the chocolate-covered strawberries and Subway sandwiches our agent set out. Our house winked and wriggled its precious little nose. People patted it on the head, and said, "Aw. Aren't you cute?" Some even made grandiose promises to make an offer. But they never did.

I began to wonder if my house stank. You know what I mean. It's like when you miss your shower and you think no one notices, because you're used to your own funk. I scrubbed harder. Three weeks passed in total. No offers.

One night I wrote a long email to our agent full of ideas, asking her to be honest, to let me know what's wrong with our house.

She called the next morning. "Would you mind if I brought in a feng shui expert?" I cringed and was intrigued and amused all at once. In other words, I didn't know what to say besides, "No." Knowing our Christian bent, she assured me without my asking that this was not a religion. This, I had read before, in a real estate article. Whatever. Bring her on, I thought.

This woman, who we'll call Stella, arrived with a suitcase of full of candles and incense and a skull around her neck. Undaunted, I determined to weed through her philosophy and focus on her decorating tips. She was a fast talker, and I was thankful for my reporting background as I quickly scribbled notes. Stella started outside, telling me to put black pots on my porch with red flowers, as she waxed on about chi as though I knew what the heck that was. Said when I planted my rose garden, which I hadn't planted in the first place, I was telling people to stay away, what with all the thorns. Inside, she told me take down my family pictures, dissed my living room furniture, and told me our goldfish was good chi. Or is that chee? She said silk flowers shouldn't be in the house, but if they are, should be thrown away in three months. Tried to tell me that some woman who lived in a mansion began recovering from a severe illness after she got rid of her silk plants, as she'd told her to do.

At this point, I began to giggle under my breath. Because people buy this, Stella is driving a Lexus SUV. I kept writing down notes on my pad to maintain my even demeanor. Or chee. Or whatever. I'm not even going to look up that word.

She adored my daughter's room, thought our master was too crowded, but loved a votive with chinese lettering I had on my dresser. Stella suggested that I remove all crosses from the walls in our house, and that's when I realized that it was kind of like a church up in there. The feng shui expert said she is Jewish, and the crosses might make Jewish buyers feel unwelcome. I don't care about feng shui, but that made me feel bad. I left one up in my closet, and had my husband take down all the others.

The tour of shame ended and we landed in my entry way, right next to her bag of tricks. My husband was on the front porch, and I could hear him entertaining our daughter. Then she was digging in this bag and pulling out incense and candles telling me what she was going to do to my house. I heard something about dragon's blood incense and whoa. Apparently seeing the look of horror on my face, our agent stopped and asked if I was OK with all this. Stella explained, in that endearing, condescending way of hers that had charmed me so, that there were no such thing as dragons. I needn't be concerned, she proferred, with a wave of her hand.

Sending women's rights back to the 1950s, I uttered, "I need to ask my husband." I beckoned him inside. He explained, quick-witted sort that he is, that I have "allergies." Stella couldn't say anything about that. But she begged to ring her Bali bell, to wake the house up, because, houses "talk" to her. OK, fine, we said. I was grateful when, to save herself time, she sent me off with red painter's tape to seal off all the money that was escaping from our house. My assignment was to wrap the tape around every pipe, under the sinks, behind the toilets--everywhere. I had to bite my lip hard as she handed me the roll.

As I ascended the stairs on my quest, I heard the bell ringing and her humming and that, that is when I finally lost it. I made it upstairs to our bathroom, holding my stomach and squelching my giggles. My poor husband, left behind on the entryway bench--well, I felt sorry for him. He'd nowhere to hide. When the bell ringing ended, I heard her start in about the candles, explaining to him that we needed one to bless our house. And that would be $19.95, thank you.

"Wait a minute. I'm paying for this?" he barked. The wheels were off the cart. I was in tears, my cheeks hurt. The agent stepped in, said she was paying for it. I composed myself and came back down.

At that point, Stella had ascended into fortune telling mode. She was explaining to our agent that she didn't have that many "business candles" in stock because Endora, or whoever it is that makes them, was waiting until the full moon ascended to the nth degree over Troy, or some crap like that.

Stella then turned to me and said that the house told her that I was the reason it wouldn't sell. I wouldn't let it go.

Now, who in the world easily "lets go" of their house, unless they just hate it? Or, they're flippers. It's their home. Stella was on auto-pilot with the fortune telling routine at this point. The house was sad, she said it said. She lectured us to tell it we loved it and then let it go. And with that, she gave us the candle, collected her $19.95 plus whatever else our agent paid her and was gone.

By this point, our agent, despite her near constant lateness, has endeared herself to us. There was no reason for her to explain, after Stella left, that she was just trying to be nice. We got that. She cares.

And we used that candle alright. Hubba hubba.