I went to the mayor’s place

Yesterday on my lunch hour I went to the mayor’s place.

There was an open house at 700 Sussex, featuring two condos for sale and one for rent. I was greeted by Cindy, the Happy Realtor, who managed to extract a fair amount of personal information from me just by asking. She got my name, street, employer, job title, marital status, education…all stuff that would allow her to roughly assess my economic status.

The only thing I lied about was my job title: I ramped it up from webmaster to IT Manager, just because it seemed more conceivable that an IT Manager might be able to afford to live in a luxury condo. (In retrospect, I wish I’d lied about everything, because I don’t think I want this woman tracking me down. She didn’t write anything down, so I hope she promptly forgot it all.)

When I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures, she seemed to take me more seriously and treat me like a potential client. Sort of.

She said I should move there because I’m single and there are lots of interesting single men living in the building. She was pretty sure I’d hit it off with John Roese, for example, who is single and available and a wonderful charming man. He’s the Chief Technology Officer at Nortel. “He’s accomplished so much for his age,” she said, “and if I were his mother, I’d be very, very proud of him. You should google him. John Roese. R-O-E-S-E.” (I googled him: he’s a blogger.)

I wonder if she dangles him in front of all the single women who contemplate moving to that building? I wonder if he knows?

I reported in an earlier post that Alannis Morisette lives at 700 Sussex, but she doesn’t. (The agent did give me her address though, if you’re interested.)

She also told me that Zita Cobb, the Chief Financial Officer of JDS Uniphase, the company that made me theoretically and temporarily wealthy until the high tech bubble burst, lives in the penthouse with her partner, David Frere. I asked if he was in high tech too, and she chuckled and said “No, but he’s a very good partner.”

I don’t know what she meant by that, but just the way she said it, it was like a dirty little inside joke, so I didn’t pry.

Who else lives there? There are a few political lobbyists in the building, but they mostly rent. Gary Duck (also of JDS), has a penthouse suite. The mayor used to live in one of the garden units, back before he was the mayor, but he has since upgraded. Apparently his ex-wife lives there too.

She also showed me the party room, exercise room, and rooftop garden and explained the biometric security system to me: you use your fingerprint to open doors. “But of course it’s not perfect,” she said, “If someone wants in, there are ways.” (And she told me what those ways were, but it would probably be irresponsible of me to publish it. It’s a matter of Municipal Security, right?)

So anyway, what are the places like? They’re nice, but I was kind of surprised that they weren’t exceptionally nice. They were, however, exceptionally expensive. The rental unit was $2700 a month unfurnished, or $3000 furnished. The two units for sale were $475,000 and $575,000 (and don’t forget the condo fees – they’re over $600 a month). These pix are all of the $575,000 condo.

I thought the fireplace was kind of dinky and squishy-looking. None of the rooms were particularly large, and the flooring looking kind of cheap. The windows were nice and big, though, and they all had two bathrooms and ensuite laundries, and the bathrooms were deluxe. (Not as nice as my mom’s new bathroom though – it’s super deluxe.)

They were definitely more upscale than anywhere I’ve ever lived. But if you put one of those condos on my street, it would probably rent for about $900 a month. I guess a prestigious address is worth a lot of money. (“It’s very reasonable!” she said, “Do you know what these places would cost in Vancouver or Toronto?”)

The location is pretty much perfect if you want to live in the heart of downtown and you don’t mind homeless people sleeping on your heating grates at night. Personally, I don’t think I could sleep knowing they were there, especially in the winter time; I’d have to go downstairs and get them. Fortunately the mayor doesn’t seem to suffer from compassion or empathy, so he should be okay. It’s that cognitive dissonance thing again. If you convince yourself they’re pigeons, not human beings, you don’t have to care about them. (For now we’ll just leave aside the question of whether I could starve a pigeon.)

At the end of the tour the Happy Realtor did something kind of bizarre: she grasped my forearm and pointed me towards a clothing boutique. “You can buy the cheapest outfits there,” she said, “and they’re all made in Turkey so you won’t have to wonder whether you’re coming or going.”

I have absolutely no idea what she meant by that.

Did she figure out that I wasn’t of the desirable class? Was it some kind of snobby put-down, designed to go over the heads of ordinary people with ordinary incomes? I’m grasping, really. I’m mystified. If anybody has any theories on what she could possibly have meant, I’d love to hear them.

Oh, and here’s a weird little coincidence. Today at lunchtime I went to an Indian restaurant. While I was waiting for my friends, I glanced at the guestbook, and the most recent signature was that of The Happy Realtor. She actually signed it that way too, right under her name.