32 long days remain until my house is foreclosed in a public auction.  With the recent postponement I’m officially cleared to pull my wallet from the back tarmac of my pants and RSVP a flight home for the holidays.  The timing couldn’t be better considering airline ticket prices have set foot on the moon.  I suspect collusion between the ailing airlines and the not-so-ailing Bank of America.  This institution of higher earning paid back their TARP money a few days ago and I suspect they'll send in the foreclosure fairy to sprinkle its pixie dust across my porch in a matter of weeks.  That’s okay, I think.  I'm tired of watering the plants in the back yard so I think I'll stop altogether.  A slow, painful death from thirst feels too cruel a demise for any life form... even So Cal palm trees.  It also just ain't my style.  Instead, I intend to euthanize the greenery by liquefying rotten Thanksgiving leftovers in my blender and pouring the gelatinous curds into their pots.  If there’s a PETA equivalent for plants I could find myself with a throng of PETP members protesting outside my house to embarrass me in front of my neighbors.  I should warn them that the impending foreclosure notice on my door won’t appreciate the competition as the preeminent humiliator in my life.  And don't get me started on my inability to match colors when it comes to fashion.  

Sitting here in my green-gray striped underwear with a pair of teal blue socks pulled up beyond my calves and nestled neatly into black dress shoes I wonder to myself, "how long can this seemingly never-ending cycle of foreclosure postponements continue?"  Potentially forever is the answer if the information in this article on lucrative fees collective by loan servicers holds any water.  The following excerpts from the article stand out:

But industry insiders and legal experts say the limited capacity of mortgage companies is not the primary factor impeding the government’s $75 billion program to prevent foreclosures. Instead, it is that many mortgage companies are reluctant to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans.

Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue — fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.

I cannot fathom the workings of a system wherein a financial institution profits when I don’t pay my mortgage.  Then again, there are few things about this economic climate I understand.  I can’t even figure out how to get my PS3 to update properly let alone how to navigate the wilds of airline ticket pricing schemes so it seems fitting to label myself somewhat screwed... all around.

I want to travel on one of the most expensive days of the year (leave a day or two before Christmas and return a day or two after).  While I want as much time and distance away from this house and foreclosure situation as humanly possible I do not know what to do about my cat.  All of my friends are vacating the city en masse for the holidays so there won’t be anyone to look in on him.  I cannot trust my Rhoomba with the task as this robot vacuum cleaner can’t even navigate itself out of from under the confines of the kitchen table and chairs.  That means I’ll have to hire someone and that means money - money I do not have in my holiday travel budget.  I’m sorta SOL.  Taking the cat on the plane is not an option.  I’ve done that once or twice before and it was pure hell… for myself, the cat and every passenger within earshot (basically the entirety of the manifest).  With security delays as sizable as they are at LAX I’d have to show up 3 hours prior to my flight’s departure.  Add in another 2 or 3 hours of flying and that’s a total of 6 hours in a cat carrier for this costly beast.  I could give him some left over sedative from the vet and turn him into Prince Valium but that’s not the solution to the problem.  In the span of that 6 hours he’s bound to have to take a pee.  That pee is bound to smell.  Trust me, he does this on a daily basis and under no circumstances does it ever not smell.  Worse yet, 6 hours is a stretch of time with which the nefarious number 2 becomes a factor.  He’s bound to unbind his intestinal tract to take a poo whilst we’re bound for the Pacific Northwest.  Whether it be stationary or travel through the sky at 600 miles plus per hour, cat pee and poo is deadly... unpleasant.  Turning a commercial airliner into a giant flying cat litter box is a surefire way to get my name entered into the annals of the no-fly list.  Having “Suspected Terrorist” cross promoting “Foreclosure Deadbeat” in the “Career Accomplishments” section on my resume is as tempting a prospect as taking a Greyhound bus for the journey. 

I’m trying my best not to be stupid with my life.  I really am.  In the spirit of this I consider the great equalizer of transportation, Amtrak.  What could be better than a glorious 34 hours in a cozy cabin viewing unbridled coastal scenery unbridled by emails, phone calls and foreclosure letters?  Not a whole lot.  A cat litter box travelling at a mere 85mph seems much less of a national security threat too.  A precious few clicks of a mouse reveals a strict “no animal” policy on Amtrak’s part.  Dangit all to hell.  Another few clicks reveal an allowance for service animals.  Ah ha…  I know what you’re thinking and so do the astute folks at Amtrak.  My suspicion is passengers feigning one flavor or another of sensory impairment for the sake of free animal transport won’t even make it past the ticket taker.   And if they do, how will they sleep at night knowing they’ve swindled a free ride on the backs of the disabled?  To be honest, I’m not concerned about either of those ramifications.  What concerns me is the 34 hours I have to spend cooped up in a 6-foot by 6-foot room with a cat who refuses to put on a seeing-eye-dog suit while I stand there wearing dark sunglasses asking him to please stop peeing on my luggage.  I can have the same experience if I just stay home, tell my furry friend, “I’m a Unicorn in a human suit,” and spend the next day and a half sleeping and eating in his litter box.  This will cost me nothing whereas a custom-made dog suit for a cat will cost the same as a cruise to Mexico.  Not that I’m in the market for a cruise to Mexico…  I can get that delightful experience for next to nothing if I purchase takeout from Denny’s and eat it on an air mattress in my swimming pool.  I promptly file this idea of dressing my cat as a dog and boarding a train away into the regions of my brain where other dumb ideas are stored, like inventing silent Velcro, learning a Romance Language, converting my 8 x 10 garage into a two-story apartment without permits from the city or loan modification and last but not least loan modification... again.