The Actor

I received an enquiry from a bloke who wants a quote to build a swimming pool, nothing unusual in itself but he lives in the arsehole of nowhere about 50 klms from my place and I wasn't in the mood to go bush at the drop of a hat so I made out that my diary was so full that the week after next would be the earliest that I could get to him.

We exchanged email and contact details and I waited at home for a week with bugger all to do. When the time came I rang him first to make sure that he was at home and hadn't forgotten our appointment because two weeks ago I got my first 'no show' and was very angry to say the least. Anyway, he was home so I set off on the scenic route via the countryside to miss the traffic jams and school run, don't you just love it when the kids are on holiday and the roads are clear of all those overweight mums taking their offspring to school in the Chelsea tractor, I think kids should start school at 10.00am to stagger the road congestion.

Found the road but the numbers were all mixed up with odds and evens on both sides of the road, rang up my appointment and got the voicemail on his mobile phone so I stopped an old chap walking his dog and quizzed him to confirm if it was me or the town planners that are stupid, well he had about as much savvy as the man on the bloody moon and I detected an English accent which reminded me of the country folk back home, you know what I mean, the light's on but nobody is at home. I did a U turn and found the house quite easily once I looked on the other side of the road.

This middle aged bloke came out to greet me in his old clothes and introduced himself, we shook hands and I followed him into the back yard to look at where he wanted to build a swimming pool. He looked at me and said 'I saw the way you looked at me and I am not rich if that's what you are thinking, just because I am an actor everyone who comes out here thinks that I have lots of money'. Now this took me by surprise because I didn't have a clue who he was and told him so, to which he replied, I'm on McClouds Daughters on T.V and was in the film Wolf Creek. I said don't worry mate, I don't watch soap opera's or go to the movies and I am not an autograph hunter either. Must have upset him slightly because he told me that the show he is in isn't a soap opera but a drama. As far as I'm concerned it's the same shit, different pile so we moved on to talking about his pool.

He told me not to charge him more than $50,000 and then proceeded to tell me that it has to be 15 long lagoon style pool with rocks around the waterline etc. I said that my prices are the same for everyone and actors don't get treated any different from the rest. We talked about the problem with all the trees surrounding the pool and I advised him to cut a lot of them down to let in some light and reduce the amount of leaves from ending up in the water, to which he replied, 'I hate cutting down trees'. I agreed with him truthfully then reminded him that these trees will only grow to drop branches and the roots will get damaged in the excavation which could cause them to die of shock. Better to cut them down and plant some rainforest species in place of the spindly gums, but hey, what the hell does an Englishman know about Australian trees, here stands before me the man who used to host Better Homes and Gardens up until 1996. Sorry mate, I still don't recognise you was living in the UK until 2004 and if you are so good at building houses and timber decks when you aren't acting..........what do you need me for? why don't you build your own pool ( is what I felt like saying but instead I just put the price up in my mind by $2000)

We laughed and joked, exchanged ideas and I quizzed him some more. When he told me that he has had 7 people before me to quote, alarm bells started ringing and I asked him what was wrong with them. He said that they didn't have any vision, couldn't think laterally and were wanting to charge him more because they thought that he could afford it. Time for me to bow out gracefully and warn him that he wants a lot of pool for $50k.

Watch this space......

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0418877/