At The Dietrich

by
Hildy Morgan

     Okay, you’re probably saying, so what’s the news here?  Happens a zillion times a day all over the world.  Okay.  The key word there was thought she paid them.  And she had.  Except for $6.35 cents. It’s a $280,000.00 dollar house and she had neglected to pay $6.35. Otherwise she was all caught up.  Now, what happened in the intervening months, I have no idea, but the upshot was that her house was taken over by the state  and put up for auction.  The auction of her home has just been frozen by a judge who says that the state has to prove she got all the information through the mail and therefore knew she was in imminent danger.  I have no idea if she will get to keep her home or not.  I’m guessing she doesn’t know.

     But this I do know.  It should never have gotten this far.  Some clerk should have given her a call.  Someone should have spoken to her, gone to see her, done something to help her.  Heck, someone, knowing what was going to happen on down the line, could maybe have paid the six bucks for her.  Something!  Anything!  What in the world is going on when we become such bureaucrats that we know someone is heading for total disaster and we can’t reach out and give them a hand?  Have we become so impersonal that we can’t call someone up and say – hey, you’re in a bit of trouble here—you need to fix it?  Couldn’t someone have done something?

     It just made me feel so sad for her.  It’s hard growing older – there are some plusses but there are plenty of minuses too.  And obviously she had too much thrown at her in a short space of time.  And she didn’t deal with it properly.  Except, paying bills is complex.  Paying taxes can be confusing.  Being suddenly alone is horrifying.  Suddenly you’re a stranger in a strange new land.  Maybe, if someone we know becomes a widow, maybe their church or their neighbor or their best pal could ask about the family finances.  Maybe someone could offer a helping hand.  A woman shouldn’t lose her home over something so petty.  And the guys at the tax office should be totally ashamed of themselves.  And don’t anyone say they were just doing their jobs because that argument was settled in Nuremberg over half a century ago!

     So, this has nothing to do with the theater or the movies or anything, does it?  But I guess I’m trying to say that if you can lend a hand to someone struggling, do it.  We all need a hand now and again, don’t we?  For most of us in the middle class, our homes are really all we have.  No one should lose everything over a $6.25 cent bill.  We’re a better country than that, a better people. Sometimes we actually have to practice Christianity instead of just talking about it.

     See you at the Dietrich.