Believe it or not, a fourth property has gone on the market on my block. It's not exactly competition with our house because it's a large older home that has been re-done and is being sold as three apartments. Still, it's another addition to what I think of as the forest of "For Sale" signs around here.

The last people to look at the house were the Redneck Refugees. I don't mean the term "redneck" derisively - I think of myself as a redneck, because of my rural roots, albiet a tolerant one. Actually, many rednecks ARE quite tolerant: their motto is "Let me alone and I'll let you alone". They just want to....

hunt, fish, farm or work in peace, hang the confederate flag over the door not because they hate anybody, but because they've always hung confederate flags over their doors -it's a tradition, like Christmas trees. They want to go out in their flannel shirts and not get mocked for their grammar or lack thereof, fix their car, fix your car - hell, they're hospitable people. They don't like it when they bring their neighbors some fresh venison- just to be neighborly - and have the nieghbor look at it like it's dog crap. That's bad manners. And Rednecks have excellent manners, based out of actual kindness - at least that's been my experience.

Of course, I tend to see the best in everybody.

Maybe I'm not an actual Redneck. I don't think an actual Redneck would have the level of interest I have in opera or literature. Maybe, given my interests I'm more of a Hick. But the point is, a Redneck isn't usually ANTI-opera or ANTI-literature. He just doesn't want it for himself.

Anyway, the last people who saw our house looked like stereotypical Rednecks, and their realtor came from Potomac. I image them as a family who got priced out of the Montgomery County area.

Their realtor was certainly a fish out of water here in the County with her safety glasses, lack of eye contact, and hostile haircut. You don't know safety glasses? That's what I call deliberately unattractive frames pretty professional women wear - even I used to wear if I had to travel by myself on the train for example - to keep down unwanted attention. Her hostile haircut was bristling everywhere, the woman was shocked when, after she muttered her name while looking at her feet and giving me a card I called her by it, "Please come in, Ms.Hostile Haircut, I'm Tea."

Ms.HH stood stupidly in the doorway, trying to discern what I could possibly mean by speaking to her, making eye contact, and smiling. She really did look shocked and confused, whereas Mrs.RR, standing behind her, brightened up considerably. She gave the realtor a gentle nudge, catapulting her into the house. My cottage style decor seemed to actually make her angry....or, it's possible that an angry look is just her natural expression.

Anyway, Mr. and Mrs.RR trooped in and spoke to me, as did their two teenage sons, who, hearing that there was a dog, immediately began to look around for him. They were told by their father that they ought to look over the house if they wanted to have their opinion count, and I went out to where Winston was on the tie out to give him a good brush.

Winston, it must be said, is enjoying the whole home selling process. He's met numerous new people and gets brushed everytime there's a showing. The young men did look over the house before coming out to play with the dog, make size comparisons with dogs they'd had, and each brother tried to get Winston to dool on the other one. They were both cheerfully slimey. I guess the back of HH's range rover was the worse for it, though it's hard for me to feel too sorry about it.

Our realtor said we got feedback from the last two showings. One was "The house is very cute, but we need more than one bathroom" and the other was "Very nice house, but not enough square footage." I think these comments are sort of disingenuous. Why would you look at a house with one bathroom if you needed more than one? The square footage posted everywhere on the listing - why would you not look at that before you came out to see it? If these really are the comments it makes me think that the buyer's realtors aren't doing a very professional job, just taking people around scattershot to look at anything in their price range.

It's depressing to hear this kind of thing. Clearly, we're not going to put in another bathroom! Anyway, we're going to have another open house on Sunday, when, possibly,it will stop raining.

But, really, I think nothing is going to sell this house until I get over my attachment to it. It's weird, because I've never been attached to a house before. It's not pleasant, trying to detach from it. Nevertheless, I have to go through it, into the future, the great wide open.

Now that I'm 39 I think my taste for adventure, even a really small one, is just gone. By next year, when I'm 40, I'll be mentally really old. But hopefully, I'll be really old in another house, in better financial shape. It's hard to trade something concrete, such as the comfort of plaster walls and wooden floors, for something abstract, like the idea of one's credit report improving.

I just have to take it on faith that what will come next is going to be even better....and, that if it isn't, I have the mental streangth to make it so.