People ask about the origin of my storylines and if the characters are modeled after real people. While ideas are often borne of creativity, they’re generally shaped by life experience. Not factual accounts, but a fusion of people, personality quirks, places, and events that meld together to create narratives. And in the case of fictional characters, always greatly embellished!

About a hundred years ago, I was a realtor. For five-minutes. The owner/broker of an international real estate firm was adamant that I would excel at this profession. For reference, I’ll call her Sharon.

Sharon was a fast talking, finger snapping, bitch on heels who had big plans for me. She launched me through an accelerated real estate course where there were no wrong answers. “Trust me,” she said. “Don’t stress over learning the material. You’ll learn it when you start selling. I just need you to pass the course quickly and get to work!”

Before obtaining my license, Sharon assured me that working under her license selling high-end homes in her new upscale development was customary practice. Having just completed the ethics portion of the course, I questioned the legal and moral consequences.

Sharon brushed off my concerns with a flourish, pointing a manicured talon in my face. “Pfft!” she hissed with the aplomb of a queen dismissing servants. “This is done all the time.” And by all the time, she meant that time. Sharon needed a young, dumb, warm body to do her bidding. I needed a job.

Sharon orchestrated the thankless task of entertaining prospective buyers. And entertain she did! She hosted lavish parties, showcasing the scaled down architectural model of her all-inclusive gated community. She created a sense of urgency to buy, buy, buy! Status seeking clients, impressed by such an exclusive address, purchased overpriced property that included membership to the private golf and country club. Initially wowed by her perfunctory bullshit, many later developed an incurable case of buyer’s remorse.

While studying the “Schmoozing with Clients” portion of the pre-licensing course, I’d acquiesced to playing nine-holes with one of Sharon’s most affluent clients. He was a member of the country club and I was his guest. After filling out guest forms at the pro shop, they scanned my ID and gave me a fish-eyed once over. “No fingerprinting? No strip search?” I quipped, as the client flashed a lecherous smile.

We motored onto the course and Sharon’s boorish client complimented me on my golf attire. At the same time, a sun-shriveled old woman came charging onto the course, stopping in front of us with a yardstick. She ordered me out of the golf cart. The smartly coiffed raisin was about to measure the length from the bottom of my skirt to the top of my knee. I had committed one of the seven deadly sins of golf etiquette. I was showing too much leg. By an inch. The client shrugged, sipped his cocktail, and looked impassively into the distance, unknowing that he was about to lose his golf partner.

This was the clientele that Sharon was wooing. I had unwittingly been dragged into the bowels of hell by a woman with misguided priorities. Besides my unwanted involvement with this smarmy individual, I discovered that I didn’t want to work in the real estate industry. It just wasn’t for me.

The culmination of being exploited by a greedy narcissist and insulted by a raisin with a yardstick caused me to snap. Leisurely walking to the golf cart, I removed a 9 iron and smiled at the raisin. I winked at the booze-swilling letch and hiked my skirt up, leaving nothing to the imagination. Chucking the club as far as I could throw, I watched as the horrified raisin withered in the hot sun.

Despite being banned from the golf course, Sharon insisted that I was going to sell real estate in her gated community of uber snobs. And she wasn’t taking no for an answer. To maintain moral standards and keep out of prison, no was the only answer. We finally parted company and for months, I kept running into Sharon. I was certain she was following me and imagined her throwing me in the trunk of her high-end sedan and launching me down a mineshaft on some off-grid property. But she was too busy entertaining prospective clients and bribing the planning commission to be bothered by a dispensable minion.

Even though real estate was not my calling, I have a great deal of respect for anyone able to work with clients who are indecisive, unreasonable, elitist assholes. It’s no coincidence that the villain in Solitary Refinement is named Sharon or that my busty officemate shares the same moniker—both a couple of real dummies.

While my short-lived real estate career is all but a distant memory, Skanky Sharon lives on as a humorous effigy and daily reminder that the terminally entitled just aren’t important. Her ridiculous expression speaks volumes and she always makes me smile.