Lights, Camera, Fiction

Our son Freddy is one of those young people for whom the bumper sticker "Hire a Teenager While They Still Know Everything" was created. Perhaps that's why he can't get a job, now that he's no longer a teenager.

"Dad," Freddy said when I last broached the subject of employment. "Real estate. Think about it."

As an expert homeowner, I think about real estate every day. I have tremendous respect for the many real estate people I know. They are self-starters, highly self-disciplined, driven to succeed and if they don't close the deal, they don't get paid. There's no room for slackers in this real estate economy. They scrap for every little deal they can get. Didn't sound like the Freddy, I know.

"Are you sure? You know, times are tough. Why don't you try something easier, like selling bunk beds to the kids your age who are going to be living at home until they're 35?"

"No way, dad. Hey. I've been watching TV. Real estate is hot." Freddie likes to speak in very short sentences.

My wife and I like Dancing with the Stars and she goes for Bachelor and I try to sneak in an hour of Wipeout now and then. So to encourage our son's newfound ambition, we checked out his favorites: "Power Flippers," "Rip and Rent" and "List it or Lose it." Few topics have such dramatic opportunities as real estate. I steeled myself for teary families reading the sheriff's notices nailed to the front door of their homes, black mold ravaging flooded basements and the heart-rending frustration of a mortgage rejection letter when you've found the dream house of your life. Perhaps with an intro featuring a helicopter-shot montage of foreclosure ghost towns like Mirage Mills, where we live, and otherwise known as the Chernobyl of American real estate.