Zack

Airhead!

If you just judge me from the pictures - four sets of them! - that you find on this site, that's probably what you'd guess about me.

A typical dumb kid disco bunny - with nothing more between his ears than his last hot date's phone number (and he's probably remembered it wrong, too!)…

Well, you may think that.

But ask any friend of mine, someone who knows me, and they'll give you quite a different picture.

They all think that I'm deep - really deep.

Not to say, in their eyes, downright weird.

Because if there's one thing that makes me different from most kids my age it's that I think ahead.

How many others do you know who are already on the property ladder? Have planned their detailed financial strategy for the next 10 years? And are currently investigating ways of avoiding a pension shortfall in the year 2049?

Yes, I do worry about the future.

And, to avoid trouble before it actually happens, I've even investigated the health issues involved in getting older.

Which explains why, just the other week, I was reading a book about stress.

It seems that there are certain events in life that drive stress levels right up and can take years off your life.

Now luckily for all of us, it seems that the most stressful event of all is divorce. That's not the actual splitting - which affects gays too, of course - but all the business with lawyers, the divorce courts, arrangements for visitations for the kids, ongoing financial support, etc. etc.

So, just for once, you can thank your lucky stars that us guys have it much easier.

After all, in our case it's far simpler.

All you have to do as you wait for Johnny to get back home from his latest trick (he's supposed to have been at flower arranging class) is dead easy…

Pack his Mariah Carey CDs, fake Versace gear and porno collection into a couple of cardboard boxes and leave them out on the doorstep.

No hassle!

But, sadly, there's one great cause of stress that we gay boys can't avoid.

Moving house.

If you've ever done it, that's a real big one. In fact, once you've had a triple by-pass you'd better just resign yourself to staying in the same house for the rest of your life.

But, like I said before, I'm already on the property ladder. So that means constantly moving on if I'm to go on improving my lifestyle.

And last week I got a letter.

It was from the real estate company, saying that a couple of guys (hmmm…) were interested in my place and would be coming to look at later that day.

But the short notice didn't give me much time to clear up the place - and it sure needed it if I was going to get a sale.

Like I said, though, I'm not dumb. I'd already read the right books on how to persuade people into making an offer for property.

The real trick, you know, is to distract them. To draw their attention away from the crap and towards something attractive instead.

You make sure you're brewing a fresh pot of coffee so the house smells welcoming when they arrive, you move the nicer furniture into more prominent places and so on.
But, with the state my place was in, I was going to have to be far more radical in my approach.
Distraction from the crap?

If that was needed to make the sale, these guys would get the distraction to end all distractions…

Once they'd arrived, I began by showing them the lounge area.

That wasn't so bad, I reckoned.

I didn't need to work so hard to distract them there so I could afford to be a little bit subtle and less obvious…

On to the bedroom next. A disaster zone. But maybe they wouldn't notice if their eyes were sufficiently distracted by what was going on nearby as I "made myself more comfortable"…
 

And then, to take their eyes off the peeling ceiling plaster, even more comfortable…

The dining area looked a bit run down too, but I guess that could be overcome if I just showed it them from the right angle…

Thank God they didn't bother looking to closely at the bathroom fittings. I'd managed to distract them successfully there too…

The two guys also seemed pretty impressed when I showed them the views from my windows…

Ultimately, when they'd had a good look around, my prospective buyers huddled together in a corner of the bedroom to think it over.

But I didn't want them to think too hard.

I needed a quick sale.

So I produced my pièce de resistance - and I made sure they got a good look at it from across the room.

Sold!