Having recently purchased a new home, my wife and I would like to find a buyer for our present home. We even engaged the services of a realtor to help us find a buyer. Our realtor has done good work for us. She helped us to prepare our home for showings. She took pictures of the house—you know, pictures that make it look bigger than it is. She has prepared flyers for potential buyers summarizing key features of the house, complete with more pictures and contact information. She has arranged for showings—quite a few of them, in fact—and has presided over two open houses in the past two weeks.

Since we just went through the process of buying a house ourselves, we know how important these things are. We also know what it's like to look over available houses. We understand that buyers tend to look at groups of houses and that they can sometimes run a bit behind or ahead of schedule. We can be both reasonable and flexible in an effort to help everyone.

I was surprised to see two cars pull into my driveway at almost half past seven this evening. It's true that we had an open house scheduled for today but that was from two to four in the afternoon. When I noticed that the second of the cars was a large SUV being piloted by a woman with an engineered tan and speaking on her mobile phone, I knew that you had come to visit. Who else but a REALTOR® could it be? You didn't have an appointment but I thought that perhaps you were just in the neighborhood and would take a chance that we'd be willing to show the place off. It seemed to me a reasonable enough thing to do.

When I went outside to greet you and your client, you couldn't be bothered to end your telephone call. You did, however, ask me if you could come in and have a look. I explained that we could not accommodate your request since our young son had just gone to bed. I did produce for your client a copy of the brochure our realtor prepared along with one of her cards. “Might you come back tomorrow?” I asked. Your client said yes. You, however, said no.

And you were still on the phone. You were very excited and you had to make the point of pre-approval with whoever was on the other end.

This might have been the end of it but for the fact that a half-hour later, our realtor called us. It would appear that you had called her to say that as you were denied entry, you would not be showing off the property. You were mad at me because I did not permit you to interrupt the tranquility of my domicile for an unscheduled visit at half-past seven on a Sunday evening. So you popped off to my realtor—a real professional—to complain as if it was my behavior that was somehow inappropriate. My home, madam, is not a part of your inventory.

I hope that your client has an interest and would like to see our home at a time that's mutually convenient. But if you're too embarrassed by the consequences of your behavior to bring your client back, I can recommend a proper professional who would be happy to put the client's interest first.