13 dec 2012

we were watching the news this morning and there was this story about a family whose house burned down last night. it was a cheap-ass little nothing house on a scrabbly piece of land. the mom woke up and smelled smoke, ran to get the baby and the toddler, and got out of the house with nothing but the clothes on their backs. the dad and the 10-yo daughter were out when the fire started. so that's three kids, remember that. oh, and p.s. the wife is 7mos pregnant.

the dad was saying it was a mystery how the fire started because they don't smoke, so that wasn't it, and they didn't have any space heaters or candles around, so that wasn't it. they were renting and didn't have renters insurance. then he goes, "all the kids christmas was in there. we just spent $600 on all the kids christmas." and i just busted out crying. real tears and all.

i mean, i don't carry $600 around in my wallet, but i don't know... i mean, it's a lot of money, okay? but at the same time, it's not. that's $200 per kid. i guess that's a lot but somehow when he said it, it didn't seem like that much, and i just busted out crying with sadness for these folks.

they moved to town three months ago, rented a house, and the dad was out at the time that it burned down. everyone else got out okay, but now they need money to start over. you don't think it's a scam... do you? or, maybe the dad tried to burn his family up whilst burning the house down? that would be ironic. the first time i've ever spontaneously busted out in tears over the morning news, and it's all a setup. generally, i skip straight to the conspiracy-to-defraud theories and shed nary a tear.