The message was unmistakable. I was looking down the barrel of a revolver. The gunman's finger was on the trigger.
He must have been a Dirty Harry fan: Clint Eastwood used that line on assorted punks in the 1971 hit film.
"For the love of God," my vocal cords, tightened with fear, managed to articulate. "Take it!"
Across the desk I shoved the paper, signing, sealing and delivering the 6 percent commission to the real estate agent.
Forgive the fiction, but if you saw the recent ad paid for by the Land O'Lakes Board of Realtors, you might understand.
Spooked by the "Buy Owner" crowd - homeowners loath to pay a real estate agent $12,000 to sell their $200,000 house - Land O'Lakes Realtors are fighting back.
And they're pulling out all the weapons. Thus the newspaper ad that features a loaded revolver, an itchy trigger finger and an Eastwood-esque line cribbed from Dirty Harry.
Presumably the logic is this: Selling your home by your lonesome is comparable to getting mugged, playing Russian roulette or taking a slug in the old cerebellum.
Get it? No?
Let's ask our Realtor friends to explain. Susan Capuano works for Shamrock Real Estate & Associates Inc. in Land O'Lakes. She's also the person behind the gun ad as spokeswoman for the Board of Realtors.
Here's Capuano's take: Real estate professionals can save you not only money and aggravation, but also your skin should a violent criminal pose as a buyer.
You wouldn't drink milk past the expiration date or clean a loaded gun or leave your keys in the car at the mall. So why sell your house without a Realtor? So says the ad.
"It was one of those brush-your-teeth ideas early in the morning," Capuano said. "It sure gets your attention."
Yes, it does. But I can forgive homeowners for trying to duck Realtor commissions in what is one of the all-time hottest real estate markets.
My Pasco County neighbor sold her house within a week of placing it on the market this summer. She got full price, too.
Her listing agent, having suffered finger strain to enter details of the house on the multiple listings service sheets, scooped up a $5,000 commission.
Not bad for a few hours' work. No wonder the woman victory-lapped our neighborhood in a new Japanese SUV not long after sealing the deal.
I'm not using this space to bash the real estate profession. Not at all.
Journalists have their own public relations problems, not least of which is our perennial ranking in popularity polls somewhere between used-car dealers and trial lawyers.
God knows Realtors will muddle through their dog years, when it takes 10 months to move a 3-bedroom, when interest rates cease bottom-feeding and when Florida is no longer the favored notch in the Sunbelt.
But I'm not sure about the handgun ad. Use fright tactics to sell home burglar alarms. Or karate classes. Or even pest control. But houses?
Remember this: Eastwood followed up the "Do you feel lucky," line by blasting the villain into kingdom come with his .44 Magnum.
(After informing the punk that it was "the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off.")
Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of Berber carpet?
