A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted

My neighbors, Brian and Karen, are going to lose their house.  It is going to be auctioned off if they don't come up with $25,000 to pay up their mortgage by the end of the week. 

Brian and Karen are good neighbors.  They keep their yard up and plant a big garden each year that they share with everyone.  If you need help with anything Brian's right there johnny on the spot to offer whatever assistance he can.

The beginning of the end started when he quit his job a couple of years ago over a dispute with his boss at a major telecomminications company.  He worked for a year or so as a truck driver and made ends meet quite nicely, but quit because he, "just wasn't going to be gone for 5 days and come home and do yard work all weekend, and get up and start over again the following week." I think he quit because he couldn't obviously drink like he wanted while on the road.

Then there was the time he got into trouble with the law over some domestic violence issue.  He was drinking, of course, and answered the door with a gun in his hand.  The sheriff's deputies decided to shoot first and ask questions later.  Brian was lucky that they had a bean bag pellet gun, otherwise he may have bought his self another piece of property in a cemetary.  

He did odd jobs from then on out but nothing permanent, and nothing that paid enough to keep up with his bills and the mortgage.  Karen was able to keep a job even if it was temporary.

Finally he started filing chapter 13's, "to keep the mortgage company from foreclosing and stall for time."  I felt so bad for them.  I told him of every place I knew that was hiring.But he had an excuse for every suggestion.  I heard them all.  

Well, two years and whole lot of beers later he is at the end of the chapter 13 rope - so to speak.  He has until the end of the month or he's out.  Karen saw the handwriting on the wall and moved a few weeks ago.  She's renting a small place for herself and all her furniture - the house is now void of furniture.

But Brian is still there.  Drinking his beer.  In his vacant house.  At least until the end of the week.