That's Entertainment

I have mentioned previously that we like watching the “House Hunters”shows on HGTV. St. Pauli Girl likes to check out houses while I get a kick out of the people on it and their constant complaining about needing an open floor plan. But what really gets on my nerves now is that every couple proclaims something along the lines: “But we entertain a lot” or “we really expect to entertain a lot and that deck is too small” or “I really wish we had friends because this would be a great house to entertain in.”

I understand what they mean. They like/want to host dinner parties or plain old parties or just have friends over for drinks. Just say what you mean. As far as I know, I've never received an invitation to a night of entertainment, but that could be because I'm very boring. I've been invited to parties and dinner parties and although they have been fun, I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to have been entertained.

So in case you are not sure if you are entertaining or just having friends over:

A good rule of thumb is if you think you could charge a cover charge or guests should bring a wad of dollar bills, then yes, you can consider yourself an entertainer.

If you sing some songs, you're friends will probably smile and politely applaud. If you put out a tip jar, you're an entertainer.

If you give a ten minute monologue of jokes, it just means you waste a lot of time on the internet. If you provide a backing laugh track, you're an entertainer.

Hosting a game night is not entertainment. I'm a sore loser so if I win, I might have been entertained; if I lose, I've just wasted a night of my life. And I probably won't come back.

Cooking dinner in an open kitchen does not make you an entertainer, especially if it involves Brussels sprouts. Flipping food in a pan over massive flames, hand tossing pizza dough, and/or juggling bottles of liquor does not make you an entertainer unless you charge me $100 to sit there and watch you. And I'll probably want a refund at the end of the night.

Now that we've settled the difference between entertaining and having friends over, I would like to announce my new career: Power Broker!

We were lucky enough to watch a new show on HGTV last night called “Power Broker.” Now I'll admit we missed the first fifteen minutes of the show, but essentially the Power Broker is a guy who gives a list of homes for sale to a young couple and helps them pick an offer price. Now this may vary by state or country, but the thing that's still great about realtors is that they handle all of the contact with the seller or buyer so you don't have to.

But the Power Broker doesn't do that. He tells the buyers to make an offer and let him know what happens. When the offer isn't accepted, he tells the buyers to write an emotional letter to the sellers. After the deal is done and the contractors start remodeling the house, he stops by and takes the head contractor out to dinner.

This would be like calling myself Power Surgeon then going into the operating room and telling the real surgeons: “yeah, the appendix is somewhere down there in the gut. You might want to start with a scalpel. Good luck. Hey, who wants to go out for pizza after this?”

But why be a Power Surgeon when I can just be a Power Broker? So if you're looking to buy a house, give me a call and I will:

• Give you a list of three houses in your price range. And they just might be somewhere in the area you want.
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• Suggest a good starting offer after examining the market and randomly picking a number out of my head.
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• Wait for you to let me know what happens with your offer
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• Tell you how stupid the sellers are when your offer is turned down.
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• Forget to tell you that you'll be on television and maybe you should take a shower and wash your hair (this would have been good advice for last night's episode)
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• Advise you to go vandalize the house as the sellers will then have to lower their price.
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• Advise you to write and record an emotional song plea to the sellers then tell you to stand on their lawn with a boombox over your head blaring the song over and over until they break down.
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• Take your contractor out to dinner.
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• Collect my fee from you including reimbursement for taking the contractor out to dinner.

The show wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't call it Power Broker. That guy's about as powerful as my cat picking out houses by deciding where to poop on the newspaper. But I guess it was easier than calling it “Some Guy Off the Street Whose Bald Head Makes Him Look Powerful and Once Bought a House so He Sort of Knows What It's Like.”