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My heart skipped a beat at the wheeze of heavy brakes as a truck pulled up to the curb outside our modest home.
The good times were over.
Peeping out between the lounge room curtains, my wife Corinna let out a nervous squeak: "Jim, it's them!" then, angrily, "I told you this would happen! But you wouldn't listen! Oh no, not Jim Connors, who doesn't care what others think!"
Anger became shame. "The neighbours are watching, Jim, from their front lawns." She began sobbing. "It didn't have to be this way. It didn't. We could afford — "
A heavy knock at the front door offered temporary reprieve.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and almost pulled the handle from the door as I wrenched it open.
"Mr. Connors?" the court Sheriff inquired.
Firmly, I said, "I am he," noting two other Sheriffs standing at the edge of my vision. The court obviously meant business this time.
"Please hold out your right thumb, sir."
I did as instructed, and felt the prick of a needle as the Sheriff's bio scanner compared my fingerprint and fresh DNA sample with Medicare records. A chirp from the instrument agreed that I was who I said I was.
The Sheriff held up a heavy sheaf of embossed paper: "Mr Connors, this is a legal warrant issued by the BCC — the Bureau for Consumer Confidence — and countersigned by a magistrate for the seizure of all specified goods in this household."
My wife let out a loud moan.
The Sheriff looked around me and said, "Mr Connors, we have a lot of work to do, and I think you'd agree that a charge of obstruction won't make this day any easier."
I nodded numbly, and led my wife out onto the front lawn, in full view of the neighbours, who made no effort to hide their triumphant curiosity.
The Sheriffs unceremoniously unloaded the contents of our home, piling the goods into the back of the dump truck, its hydraulics whining.
One of the flunkies dropped my 50-inch plasma onto the concrete pavers, leaving a trail of gouged plastic as he dragged it to the truck.
"That was only two years old. There's no need to treat it like — "
Smiling, the other flunky dropped a crystal decanter in front of me. That had been a wedding present.
"Oops," he said dourly, challenging me.
Shortly afterwards, the second truck arrived, larger than the first, full of bright new things.
"I'm leaving you, Jim," Corinna announced. "To have to have the Sheriff's department clear out the old rubbish and bring new consumer goods to our home…it's too much. You ignored the BCC's low debit warnings. 'Jim Connors is different from everyone else. Special. He doesn't need to have the latest of everything, doesn't give a hoot about the economy.' Well, what do you think the Joneses think now?"
The Sheriff agreed. "You know, sir, there are some folks who genuinely can't afford to have all the new stuff…they'd give an arm and a leg — sometimes a kidney — to have what you got today. I'll need your thumbprint again for the Eternity Bank debit agreement, plus another drop of your blood…"