Girls Just Wanna Have Phlegm!

The following week, I make contact with the attorney and schedule a meeting with Diane to start the bankruptcy ball rolling. Filing bankruptcy would buy her 60-90 days, which would give her more time to find another place to live and to figure out what to keep and what to sell or store. The meeting was set for Friday of that week.

I call Diane that day to tell her about it and got no answer and no call back. Same story the next day. This was unusual since Diane would usually look at her caller ID to see who called and call me back accordingly. So, on Wednesday night, I decide to go over to the house and see if anything was amiss. (And only half jesting, I told my wife I was going over to see if she was dead) After a few minutes spent banging on the door and walking around the place, her neighbor comes by. I introduce myself and ask him if he knows where Diane is. He proceeds to tell me that she and her male companion Al took a week's vacation to Washington, DC!!!!!!!! Did she say a word to me about it? Noooooooooooo!!!!!!

So there it is in a nutshell, Diane vacations while Bill bails her ass out!!!!!!! And that $300 she needed for oxygen equipment? I'm guessing that went instead to pay for her trip! Right then, I had half a mind to wash my hands of this deal and watch her sit there doing nothing till the sheriff came to evict her and throw all her crap out on the curb! I was fucking pissed!!!!!!!!!

Oddly enough, the following Friday, I got a call from my beloved Aunt Diane! Needless to say, she was shocked when I finished her sentence which began, "I'm in...."

But then she said, "And I'm back in the hospital." Yes, she was at Walter Reed with her third bout of pneumonia in the last four months! Went on to say the doctor said she could fly home the following Monday (wouldn't you like to have been be the lucky passenger who got to sit next to that mucus machine for three or four hours!)

But the best part is, she actually had the stupidity to ask if I'd heard anything good from the attorney, (overlooking the irony of me doing all her damn legwork while she's coughing all over the capital!). Holding my tongue, I told her that there was no good news, that she'd have to file bankruptcy when she got back that she'd have to find someplace else to live, because yes, she's gonna lose the house. Her response? "Well that's probably gonna take them awhile...."

So since she was sick, I was denied the opportunity to unload on her. My wife told me I sounded pissed while I was talking to Diane, but sadly, such subtle little nuances seem to elude her. I started to wonder seriously, since she seemed to be getting weaker with every round of pneumonia, if sooner or later, that one big phlegm ball with her name on it is gonna catch up to her and send her to that great big ash tray in the sky...