Standing in two feet of snow outside my recently purchased house on the shore of a large lake, I recall the words of the real estate salesperson. In a poorly phrased question, I had asked if this area got much snow. Quite truthfully, he told me that he had used his snow shovel only once last year.

Perfect.

But I should have followed up, because I, too, was not now using a snow shovel. Instead, I had two men with a truck and a plow, and a couple of neighbours with snowblowers.

Truth is an evasive creature.

Take cars. I had wanted something better than my usual clunker. I found a dealer with a likely vehicle, which I took for a test-drive one night. The salesman sang its praises and I liked it, but I noticed one odd quirk.

“The numbers on the floor-mounted automatic gearshift don’t light up,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said.

Perfectly correct, and I left it at that. I could live with this minor and odd design flaw.

But when I took the car in for servicing a couple of months later, I noticed a small charge for “gearbox wiring.” When I asked the service guy, he told me there was a loose connection that he had fixed.

“Must have been a bit awkward driving at night, when you couldn’t see what gear you were in,” he said.

True enough. And I should have asked a better question when buying the car.

Or how about the summer suit I bought when I first started to make a little bit of money in a job that called for a suit and tie.

The suit was on sale, possibly because it was bright green. It also was extra-large – which I wasn’t – and came with two pairs of pants.

“Perfect for you,” said the salesman. “We can alter it this afternoon.” Which they did.

I picked it up and took it home, and put it on for the pleasure of my mother and my wife.

“Like it?” I asked.

“It’s bright green,” they said.

“The coat wraps around you like a bathrobe and the crotch of those pants is at your knees,” my wife said.

And that was my only wearing of the suit. Had I asked the salesperson a few questions, I would have saved myself some money and some embarrassment.

But it is perhaps in dealing with real estate that I have run into the most evasive answers to my questions. You could even call them “non-answers.” You would think I would be old enough to follow up on my own questions.

But no.

Perhaps 30 years ago, we bought a house in a pleasant neighbourhood in Toronto. The house looked a bit tired from the outside, but nothing that a coat of paint and a new roof and new windows wouldn’t fix.

“It is a period piece,” said the real estate person. And we thought that must be a good thing.

What did not occur to us was that the period was circa 1912.

The dust in the basement had been settling for 60 years, and no one had thought to disturb it. The furnace was an ancient monster so fearsome that I was afraid to be alone with it.

The kitchen was “early farmhouse.” And when I climbed into the attic to inspect the insulation, I found a copy of the Toronto Evening Telegram from 1932. And that was the insulation. Period.

We also bought a splendid cottage once, which had two septic systems.

“Two septic systems?” I asked.

“Yes,” I was told.

What I didn’t ask but could easily have verified was what kind of shape they were in. The fact they both were at least 40 years old should have been a clue.

I could tell you more, but I have a weak stomach. But if you have a cottage on my lake, you should know that those septic systems have long been replaced.

Expensively.

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