Zombie Midget Realtor

I don't quite remember what caused it, but a few years ago I missed a dentist appointment and never rescheduled. I haven't been back since, and I'm pretty sure every tooth in my head is completely decayed. It's now to the point where so much time has passed that I'm afraid to go back, just out of shame. I don't want to face the inevitable lecture. I never had a single cavity when I was growing up, and now all my teeth feel weird and hollow. That can't be good.

Last summer I had about 30-something returning visitors to this blog every day. It's not a lot, but it's nice to know that, of the hundreds of millions of blogs out there, a couple dozen complete strangers are bored enough to spend their lunch hours reading about my fascination with Asian coffee drinks. After moving into our new place back in August, and all the new clients piling up at work, I've been too drained to read or write anything (and I'm not the only one), and after weeks of no new posts, those thirty people have shrunk to 9. That was a few weeks ago. I haven't checked since then. I'm afraid to even look now, just like going back to the dentist.

So whoever's left, tell your friends that guy with the rotting teeth is back online, and he's making a concerted effort to post on a semi-regular basis, at least until the next psychological crisis renders him unable to do anything but rock back and forth under his desk and drool. In other words, I should be good until around Thanksgiving or so.

Alright, there's so much to catch up on, but right now all I'm focused on is an ad I saw Friday in the Metro. It was for The Learning Annex Real Estate & Wealth Expo, and featured a frighteningly large photo of Donald Trump's shiny, greasy face. It looked like he just dunked his head in a Frialator, to the point where his giant pores were actually a distraction from that weird animal carcass sitting on his head. Anyway, according to the ad, for just $99, you'll learn the secrets to becoming a multi-millionaire from Trump, as well as Keynotes speeches from George Foreman, Tony Robbins, and a smiling Asian guy. The ad didn't say whether Trump's hair would take the podium and give it's own seminar, but it did promise that Tony Robbins will "rock your world!" Obviously I have no idea what the secrets to becoming a multi-millionaire are, but I'm pretty sure one of those secrets is to get suckers to pay $99 to hear you talk.

To get the Donald's unsettling visage out of my head, I thought about one of the other ads for money-making seminars that have appeared in the Metro. During the summer they had one for the Cash Flow Generator Think Big Conference, another real-estate conference, led by millionaire twin dwarf brothers. The ad ran for a week or so, leading up to the event, which was held at an airport Ramada or something. It seems there's always some get-rich-selling-real-estate seminar taking place, but this one was different, because it had dwarfs. Not just dwarfs (dwarves?). Twin dwarfs.

And here's where it gets weird. Okay, weirder. I mentioned them at work, and when I was met with the usual blank faces, I looked to the trusty internet to prove I hadn't imagined two tiny millionaires in business suits. Not only did I find them, but I found the obituary for one of them, from 2005. Granted, when you ride the train to and from work every day, all the days sort of blend together, but I could swear that I saw that ad this summer, six or seven months after one of the advertised speakers died. That's sort of creepy. Don't you think some sort of acknowledgment that one of the founders of the program had passed and would therefore be unable to attend would have been helpful, and above all, classy? Or were they just going to prop him at the podium and wave his arms around, and hope no one will notice? I for one would have the surviving brother stand next to a mirror. Of course, it could be there's another set of identical twin millionaire dwarf brothers teaching real-estate seminars and I've got them confused. It doesn't seem likely though.