San Francisco Real Estate - Residential

You get what you give

As we get closer to Christmas it is important to remember that it is also a time for giving. At SFResidence, we get so wrapped up in buying and selling real estate that sometimes we overlook the simple things.

Every year at this time, TRI Coldwell Banker sponsors a "Toys for Tots" drive in our office. This year I thought I would do something a little different in conjunction with this program. My idea was simple. I own a rental property and thought it would would be a good idea to "borrow" two kids from one of my tenants and have them help me pick out toys for the "tots". In return I would let them each pick one toy for helping me. After all, who knows what kids want better than other kids? Sounds like a great idea, right? The vision I had of what was going to happen and what really took place were not the same, however.

My tenant is a single mother who works hard every month to pay her rent, and so I am sure the kids do not get a lot of attention. Before I go on, Bill Cosby used to say that if you only have one child, you're not really a parent. Now I know what he means. My daugher is now grown, but I don't remember having too much trouble keeping an eye on her when she was young. I thought having already been a dad once would prepare me for this experience... WRONG!

Just the ride to the toy store should have given me an idea of what I was in for. Now I know why my dad used to use the phrases, "Knock it off or I'll stop this car" or "Okay, we're going back home" on my sister and me on our road trips. The kids were so excited, they were WILD! During the drive, in order to keep them from hitting each other, I tried to distract them by singing Christmas songs. But the only one they could come up with was "Jingle Bells" with the funny lyrics that all schools kids know. And they sang it over and over... and over and over... and over...

At Toys 'R' Us, it was like herding cats. As soon as the car doors opened, it was like the opening of the gates at a horse race. I was afraid the kids would get hit by a car in the parking lot, and I had visions of having to tell the mother how her son and daughter were injured by an unsuspecting motorist. And once we were safely inside, it didn't get any easier. Keeping these two together in a TOY STORE, was anything but easy.

Anyway, what usually takes 20-30 minutes turned into a 1.5 hour event. It was fun watching them choose toys for the other kids, at least when I wasn't worried about losing them in that big warehouse! After that we had lunch and then headed over to the fire department where we dropped off our packages. There was an anxious moment. The firemen let the kids climb up in the big hook and ladder truck. All of a sudden a call came in. It was tough getting the kids out of the truck as the sirens started going off... I'm sure the firemen were just as relieved to be going to a fire as I was to have the distraction to herd the kids back into our car so we could head back to their house.

After years of the relatively benign act of donating to "Toys for Tots" and other charities, it was a great first hand experience, and I look forward to doing something like it again next year!

Happy Holidays!

- Mick Orton

posted by SFResidence.com @ 7:36 AM