Earlier today, some poor, unsuspecting real estate agent left a very nice message on our voicemail, thus unwittingly releasing a storm of chaos into the harriet household. �Hi, my name is C., I�m a real estate agent with Reputable Firm in Next Town and I�m also a fellow resident of Lake Stepford. I know this might sound a little strange, but I have some clients who want to move to Lake Stepford and most particularly, they are interested in your house. So if you think you might be interested in selling at some point in the near future, please give me a call.� [Message is paraphrased by me, but she sounded nice and not too annoying].

What my husband got out of this message: Hey, we�re thinking of moving in the next year when you get that fabulous university job you deserve. We should really think about this, because houses in this neighborhood sometimes sit on the market for a while and we�d be prepared. They might even be willing to wait. At the very least, we might find out what the place is worth.

What I got out of this message: Oh, my God, I�m going to have to stop working on my dissertation and someone needs to clean the spiders out of the light fixtures and I wish we�d replaced that dirty carpet and AJ would have to leave school and we wouldn�t have a place to live and would either end up sleeping at your mother�s or on the street or living in the ghetto where AJ would have to go to kindergarten at a bad public school or we�d buy another place that we�d pay too much for because we were desperate and then we�d lose our shirts in taxes when we�d have to sell in less than 2 years if I get that fabulous job and, hey, is the sky falling?

Half-full, half-empty. Thank God one of us is sane. Now, why can�t it be me?

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