Chapter 4 “One Last Hope”

September 28, 2009 | Posted by Mister P

- ONE LAST HOPE -

John pulled out the business card for ABC Construction and retreated to their second bedroom. It was part office, part storage room and was cluttered with haphazardly stacked boxes. He removed a stack of books from a chair and sat down. He took a deep breath and dialed the number.

“Hello? This is Rob.”

“Hi, sorry to be calling so late, I thought I’d get your answer machine.”

“No problem, you got me on my cell phone. Who is this?”

“My name’s John Smith. I don’t know if you remember Sarah Kirkpatrick?” John didn’t wait for an answer but continued headlong. “Anyway she told me about her problems and told me you had helped them. My wife and I are planning to build a timber framed house but were having some problems with the bank.”

“Oh, yes, I remember Sarah,” Rob replied. “We built them a nice house last year. They had a few major hurdles to clear but they figured out a plan and it went great. Would you like to get together sometime to see how they solved their problems?”

“Sounds great,” John answered. “When could we meet?”

“How does next Tuesday about 3:00 sound?”

John felt a sense of urgency, “Could we meet any sooner?”

They agreed to meet at Rob’s office the next day at 3:30. John put down the phone, went back into the living room and sat across from Lisa.

“Hey, guess what?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I scheduled a meeting with a builder tomorrow. I want you to come too.”

Lisa looked at him. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s the point?”

John filled Lisa in on his conversation with Sarah then added, “I thought we could explain our situation and see what he has to say. It can’t hurt anything.”

“Well, I suppose not. You already screwed up the loan and we’re dead in the water.”

“Oh, that’s right, this is all my fault – again! You know I get enough of that from your mother, I don’t need it coming from my wife, too!”

“Well, maybe if you made enough money that we weren’t stuck in this crummy apartment, we wouldn’t have a reason to blame you.”

“How can anyone make enough money the way you spend? You are the one who screwed up all of our credit cards and I’m the one who’s been paying for it. My car’s ready to fall apart, but I can’t afford to get a new one because of you!

“What are you doing?” Lisa asked, as John began writing on a small sticky note pad.

“I’m writing all of this down.”

“For what?” she asked defensively.

“I just talked to Rob on the phone. One of the things he told me was to write down all our complaints about our current situation. It’s the first step in the Master Method. He said the first step is to write each complaint on a different sticky note. He said he’d explain more when we meet with him tomorrow.

“I have a husband that I have no respect for. How’s that for a complaint?” she said bitterly.

“Well if that’s a real complaint instead of you just trying to be nasty, fine! I’ll write it down and add it to the pile. Rob says the first step is to identify all of our complaints and things we don’t like about our situation. We write down everything. We’ll decide what’s relevant later on.

“Great, then you can add to that list the fact that all of our money is tied up in a piece of land that we can’t build on thanks to some stupid zoning problem!

“I’ll write that down as two complaints. Money tied up, and zoning problems.”

“You’re serious about this. You’re really writing all that stuff down?”

“The way I see it, we can give up and cry about it, or we can look for other options. I’m not ready to roll over and play dead just yet.”

“What time are we meeting this guy tomorrow?’

“3:30. I’ll pick you up at three, that’ll give us plenty of time to get to his office.”

“OK. I’ll be ready.”

As she walked away, John thought he noticed something new in Lisa’s eyes. Something he had never seen before. He had actually started taking charge, and he could barely hope to think that he had actually seen a small look of respect.

Your opinion matters! Please comment.

Got the bone in my teeth…

Mister P

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