January 14, 2010 | Events that Jar You from Your Complacency

I’m writing to tell a story that few people will probably ever read. It’s all right. I probably won’t really remember all the details in the few years myself, which is why I’m writing it down while the details are reasonably fresh in my memory. Here goes.

I’ve had a few events in my life that can classify as “near misses.” Fortunately, there are very few, but I’d like to focus on one that happened to me on Wednesday afternoon.

Let me take you to the town of Sebastian and to a property my father listed. The property was priced to move, particularly as the original owner had passed away of natural causes, and it was placed into a trust bequeathed to the surviving relatives. Within a few days of listing, the sellers received a very solid offer and the property is expected to close next month.

Anyway, the surviving son and his wife cleaned up the place before they had to head back to their own home, apparently in another state or somewhere within considerable driving distance. My dad was the first to check it out in the early afternoon, and while there fate had just happened to sneak up on him: one of the wire shelves in the garage was overloaded, so the simple act of opening the door leading from the house to the garage apparently broke the clips. This resulted in cans of paint unceremoniously hitting the garage floor. Some of this splatter went on my father’s slacks and dress shoes. He was pressed for time as it is, because he had another engagement he had to attend, so he was unable to clean it up himself.

Here’s where I come in. My dad comes home and tells me the situation, and so I head there. Before I left, he also asks me to take pictures of the interior, as the relatives were cleaning out the place when it was first listed. I was also told that the relatives headed back home yesterday, and as such I’m not expecting to meet with anyone there. Armed with this information, I break out my old work clothes, seeing as I’d have to be cleaning up paint.

I go there, assess the situation, and start cleaning up. It takes about 15 minutes to clean everything up, and another couple of minutes to wash the paint from my hands. (I should have snagged some latex gloves, but that’s a moot point now.) With everything squared away in the garage, I start prepping the interior so that it can be photographed.

It was maybe 5 minutes into this when I hear a man’s voice. “Hello, anyone here?”

I stop what I’m doing to meet the guy at the front door.

He has a gun pulled out. It’s not aimed at me, but it’s out.

(It is times like these where vulgarity is more than appropriate. Fuck.)

What happens next was a bit of a blur, for I went into autopilot. In my head was a voice wanting to scream. I felt my heart begin to race, in conjunction with all the other little things that go into the flight-or-fight response. I remained calm and introduced myself as working for the listing agent, told him that I was his son and that I was there to take photos.

Oh, and in the confines of my tiny brain, I also asked that I’d not be shot. Or, failing that, if I were shot, that it would be quick.

Fortunately, the gun was holstered and I remain physically unscathed. I proceeded to work as normally as I could from the experience; I informed him and his wife about the shelving issue in the garage, and that I would be back sometime later or tomorrow to fix it. Real simple, as I’d just need to get new plastic clips from Home Depot. I went around to open blinds, make sure things were presentable, and began snapping photos. They left again.

My mind was wanting to race out from my skull at that point. I debated on whether or not I should inform my father of what had happened, or whether or not I should even bring it up at all. Nothing came from it, so I just continued doing what I was sent there to do.

It was as I was wrapping up that I received a phone call from my father.

“So you met the sellers, huh?” he said.

I replied in the affirmative, and in the course of the conversation he revealed that the seller called him and told him about what happened. As you could imagine, my father didn’t react too kindly to having a gun pulled out at his son.  My dad also has the ability to joke about things, and so jokingly told me that he would buy me a new pair of pants. We laughed and that phone conversation soon ended.

Yet my mind still reeled, knowing full well that the situation could have turned out badly. I could see all sides of the event that I’ve described, all the whys and wherefores. That doesn’t really disturb me. What disturbs me is all the unknown factors that could have come into play. I don’t know the guy; the guy didn’t know me.

So I don’t know his mental state, what level of training he has with firearms, or his disposition. For all I knew, he could have been a robber, seeing as I had never met the sellers before. (Normally, I meet with most of my father’s sellers as well during the listing process.)

Now he didn’t know me either, as I’ve already noted. However, my car was out in the driveway, and from it he could have surmised two things: one, my last name was Beaudoin (because the name’s on the vanity plate at the back of the car, spelled semi-phonetically in six letters), and two I was related to a Realtor, since I have a plate at the front of my car that says “Consult a Realtor.”

I’m unsure about what thought process went into the seller pulling out his weapon and entering the house. I’ll never know, so I try not to think about it… However, it crosses my mind from time to time.

Honestly, with all the things that could go wrong, it scares the shit out of me some days. This event certainly jarred me from my complacency. I never really think that something is going to go horribly wrong with me, or that I might involve myself in a bad situation. I don’t think most people act that way, otherwise who would want to wake up from their beds?

Yet this event unsettled me, and it still does. It’s not debilitating but it gives me pause, reminding me to be thankful for all the good things in life—even if life can sometimes kick you in the jewels. Or have a gun brandished about your person.