072511 (2)

Bayside "Blame It On Bad Luck"
As soon as I walk in the door I can tell something is wrong. I walk in to voices that hush as soon as the garage door creaks open. Mom sits leisurely on the big leather chair cracking sunflower seeds when I step into the living room. The greet me with friendly conversation as I cross to the kitchen, but once I put my purse down she tells me I should sit down. I grab a cold bottle of iced tea from the fridge and pull out the tall stiff chairs we have set at our kitchen island.

'What's going on?' I ask.

'We've been expecting a letter from the bank, and it arrived today,' she said. 'We aren't going to be able to stay in the house. We didn't qualify for the loan modification, and because of the bank's screw up from last year, we owe twenty thousand dollars to the bank as well as our monthly payments went up to three thousand a month. We can't afford that, so we aren't going to be able to stay.'

I've been expecting this, we've been waiting almost two weeks for this particular letter to arrive. After numerous phone calls with the bank over the past three months, my dad finally was able to talk to someone who could only tell him to wait for the letter. And here it is. Bad news. I'm still holding my iced tea, but suddenly I'm not thirsty. I don't want to be sitting, I need to do something, busy my hands. I start to put the uneaten snacks in my lunchbox away.

'So what are we gonna do? Is the bank gonna foreclose on our house? Do we have to sell it? How long til we have to move out?' I ask, questions spilling out of me like an overflowing pitcher.

Dad starts talking now, 'we don't know exactly yet, we have to talk to Tia. She can help us with the real estate questions, and her friend Sydney will be able to help us with the loan questions. We think we will be able to short sale the house, and if that's the case we don't know how long it will take. It might take a few months, it might take a few weeks. But do have to figure it out still. We just found out, and we wanted you to know. You can move with us or you can find your own apartment with your friends. It's up to you. But as of right now, it's up in the air.'

This is a lot to take in. Though not unexpected, it's still a shock, similar to Amy Winehouse's death a few days ago. It's a mess but at least we don't have to wait for it to come anymore. It's here and now we have to deal with it.

Mom continues, 'we also have a question for you. Your father can't go without his work truck much longer. No one will give us a loan with our credit scores now that this has happened. We were wondering if we could use you to buy dad a new truck. It would have to be in your name, but we would make all the payments, the deposit, the registration, etc. But we don't qualify for any financing, and your credit score is still impeccable.'

'Of course,' I say. 'That doesn't bother me at all. I don't mind using my name to get dad a new truck, I know he's not gonna stiff me on the payments and he wouldn't do anything to damage my credit score. Maybe we can do the same thing with a new house?' I ask. 'I can look into condos or houses for sale cheap here in town, and we can buy that under my name, instead of having to move into a crappy apartment.'

'What about the stove?' I hear myself ask. My dad has a really expensive Wolf stove he bought a few years ago, and I don't see them leaving it in a house they aren't going to be able to keep or even profit from. 'Our fridge, the hottub? Do we have to start packing up now?' I keep asking questions, though I know they don't have all the answers yet.

'We're taking the stove and the fridge, and maybe even the island. It wasn't a part of the house when we bought it, and we don't want anyone else to have it if we can't. We can store the stove and the fridge in storage until we find another house, or maybe sell it on craigslist. The hot tub stays. It's getting old and breaking down, and we can't move it anyway,' dad states.

'As for packing, I don't know. If we have to start showing the house for a short sale, we have to get rid of all personal pictures and any valuable items we don't want out. But I don't think we have to do that for awhile yet. Like I said, we're just finding out today, we should have some time to call and ask questions. Unfortunately no one at the bank has any idea what is going on, they all have their heads up their asses.'

'Why, what happened?' I inquire.

'We have called 4 different people today, and gotten 4 different answers to the same question. No one over there knows what is going on, and that doesn't help us any. We just have to take our time and weigh our options. But if you could take some time tomorrow at work and look up apartments or condos in the valley, we would appreciate it,' dad says, in a suprisingly calm voice.

The thought runs through my mind that we are poor. We've been poor for awhile, but we've always had our house. Now we won't have our house. What will my friends think? What will I do? I've been wanting to move out for ages, but not under these circumstances, I dont want to ditch my parents if they need me the most now. And what about Kourtney? My mind is running a million miles a minute. I exchange my iced tea for a bottle of the pear cider I just bought this weekend.

'This is gonna be a long week,' I sigh as I open my beer. My head is still full of questions, but I won't get the answers yet, better put them away for later. I try to calm my mind and relax. I sit on the couch, and look at my parents, both who have given up so much for me, and whose lives are soon to be crashing down around them. A lot of other people are in the same situation, they remind me. But it's hard when it's so close, when it's personal.

I know we will pull through this, but it's gonna take strength I don't know if I have ever tapped into before.