"This is a very desirable neighborhood. I think your house will sell quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple offers..."
In my experience, realtors are relentlessly optimistic. Or, at least in LA, willfully deceptive. Or delusional. Usually, some combination of the three.
But, hope springs eternal. So when the house officially went up for sale on Wednesday, I hoped for the best and within hours, the appointments for showings started to flood in. Color me surprised. But it was kind of a mixed blessing. I had just acquired a new client and I have a very big job due today. I was already hopelessly behind before the house even hit the block. And now, every two hours or so, I would have to stop what I was doing and pack up the dogs and leave for a good long while. I was basically fucked. Then again, I've lived in Bakersfield for two years, so it's not like I'm not used to that.
I did ask the realtor if perhaps they could kind of gang up the showings to make the disruptions less frequent, so yesterday she clustered a bunch of them together and around 11am the dogs and I had to split for about an hour and a half.
But I had a plan.
There's a park not that far a drive from here. I see it all the time, and it looked pretty nice. The dogs and I would have a lovely afternoon in the park in the unseasonably warm weather.
I figured the park would be deserted on a weekday, and I was mostly right. Except for the drug dealers. And the tatted up ex-cons playing basketball. And I think, maybe, some hookers. They have to go somewhere during the day, right? And there were all those abandoned mattresses piled up, which, you know, could be put to use I suppose.
I led the dogs away from all that, to the back end of the park, to the edge that faced a residential street of run down, once nice homes. They all were encircled with chain link fencing, holding back rabid pit bulls. No doubt intended to intimidate the roving band of parole officers which was going door to door to, you know, check up.
Even the dogs looked uneasy, and who could blame them? I decided we were leaving... NOW.
But what to do? I still had an hour to kill.
So the dogs and I took a road trip.
We got in the car and we just headed west.
Driving west out of Bakersfield is like exploring the rings of a tree, or more appropriately, a nine layer dip. It's the Cliff Note's version of the history of Bako. First you hit the far flung subdivisions, with names like "Liberty", and "Seven Oaks" and "Brighton Park" and "Tesoro". Then you hit the stillborn extensions of said subdivisions, fields of concrete slabs and half-built homes. After that are the fallow former farmland that still sports the faded signs promising "Phase V" of all of the above. Beyond is the real farmland, which you knew was coming by the smell of the manure. The only surprise for me was the discovery of "MilitiaLand", a strip of gun ranges and warehouse "churches" with names like "God's Army".
I have to say, I saw more of Bakersfield in a day than I've seen in the past two years we've lived here. Which is why I'm glad we are getting the fuck out.
And that appears to be happening sooner rather than later...
We have two offers on the house...
Over asking...
In one day.
I'm going to have to adjust to "relentlessly optimistic". It isn't normally in my nature
