Peachy Therapy Session at Duff's

“I’m depressed.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m really mad.”

“I’m mad, too.”

“And my feelings are hurt.”

“Yes! My feelings are hurt, too.”

This discussion took place today at Duff’s, where my friend Karen and I discussed our general malaise over not being able to sell our homes. Hers has been on the market since April; mine since May. At first, we both had a reasonable stream of lookers. The stream turned into a trickle and then dried up. Now, the phone rarely rings.

Sitting at the table with us was George, whose home is not for sale. He asked why our feelings are hurt.

“I love my house,” Karen wailed, “and people who come to look at it say mean things about it.”

I nodded in agreement. “Really mean things.”

George asked, “Like what?”

"Some people didn't like my color scheme and some were annoyed that the perfectly good cooktop was old," I said. "So I let Pete come in and paint and I replaced the cooktop."

Karen said, “People look around my house and they say, ‘This is really big – and it needs a lot of work.' I already know that! That’s why I’m trying to sell it.” Karen had hoped to sell her nine-bedroom home “as is.” She sighed. “That’s not working.”

I asked if she has gone through the house to clear out clutter. Karen frowned. “I started to," she said. "I opened one closet and considered what to do with the contents. I really like to iron, and I decided I would rather iron than clean out that closet. I started ironing cloth napkins, and I ironed all of them. When I was finished, I counted them. I had ironed 350 napkins.”

Hey -- you have to do whatever works. “Did you go through anything else?” I asked.

Karen reported that she had opened a kitchen drawer, intent on filling a couple of boxes with extraneous kitchen tools. “I brought home a lot of boxes from work,” she said. “When I was finished in the kitchen, I had four items in the bottom of a great big box. Four. Total.”

We discussed the level of assistance provided by burying statues of St. Joseph. Karen has not tried it. I told her my statue has provided lovely blooms in the big pot of geraniums, but no buyers for the condo.

We discussed how we are smart women, good at being in charge, happiest when we are in control of our circumstances. Then we admitted that being smart isn’t helping, that we are not in charge of whether our places sell – much less when – and we are not in control.

We discussed that acknowledging all that made us even unhappier.

And so we moped, sitting at the table at Duff’s.

George was appropriately sympathetic. He assured both of us that he is the kind of home buyer who prefers “as is” offerings. He expressed indignation that the people who have looked at our properties have failed to recognize just how special our homes are, and have concentrated instead on minor flaws. Of course, George already has a house and is not in the market for another.

Sharing tales of woe at Duff’s was, in retrospect, therapeutic -- and the peach cobbler was delicious.