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get rid of it because he is hurting for m-m-m-money and it wont cost you a for-for-fortune to fix it up!"

"OK, Frank, show us around" said my husband. We had our son and son-in-law with us. We had learned untrained eyes can miss important flaws. Also, we did not want to let emotion govern our choice, but rather practicality. And we did not want to get in over our heads.

Everything sounded good, according to dear old Frank. We exited the car, thinking the front door of the house had been left open. Well, the place was "easy to show" because anyone could get to see it real easy....it had no front door, no back door and on the back of the house many broken windows!

We decide to look on the bright side and go inside. You did not need to bring a marble with you to see if the floor was level, it was obvious the bottom floors were not level. We decided since we made the 30 mile trip, we should keep looking.

Frank now says, "The upstairs is in much better shape." What he forgot to tell us was, that only one person at a time should walk up the stairway due to the bottom step being missing and temporarily supported by a cement block.

After some scary moments we all made it upstairs. And, Frank had told the truth! The upstairs was in better shape. He proudly showed us around the bedrooms with an updated bathroom (the previous owner had been working on it but ran out of money due to a job loss).

In the meantime, our son and son-in-law were looking everything over really carefully and went back downstairs to have a look around the basement. My husband always took a clip board with him to jot down everything he noticed and then we would compare notes with our other "family inspectors" when we got back to the car.

As we were thinking this does appear to be the best place so far, we heard a distant whistle of some sort, which at first sounded very far away. But, then we noticed as we were discussing the house, it was getting louder and louder. Then we felt a slight vibration. Not much, but still noticable. The whistle got louder again and my husband and I looked at each other and said to Frank, "What to h-e-double hockey sticks is that!"

Frank then sheepishly looked around and in a trembling voice, (we could barely hear) said, "Well.... I did tell you it was near pub-pub-public transportation." "Oh yes, indeed you did," my husband hollered as the long passenger train roared by at the back end of the property.

We made our way down the stairs, telling Frank we would get back to him. We did need to discuss this fixer-upper with each other first. By now, in our hearts, we knew we were telling him a fib. Not on purpose, it just seemed we lacked a quick way of telling him in a polite way, we were pretty much done. It may sound strange, but we also felt sorry for him and did not want to hurt his feelings.

As we were leaving the driveway our inspection team reported to us: "Mom, you better not even think about buying this place". Hubby and I both asked why. Apparently they had found evidence of a termite infestation and our son-in-law says, "Sad to say, the only reason this house is still standing is because the termites are all still holding hands!"

Later, we discovered the "pub-pub-public transportation" was available 3 times a day! Needless to say, we never saw our old Fra-Fra Frank again. Somehow, though, he was endearing to us and we think of him once in a while. I suppose its because he did have a conscience, not being able to lie straight and seeing how he only stuttered when he was telling his whop-whop- whoppers! May God still bless ya, Frank...where ever you are!

Learn more about this author, Victoria Rose Perkins.
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