Morristown Engineer Loses Home to Foreclosure After Failed Rapture

"On May 21, 2011, The Dirtiest Player in the Game will rule once again, baby!!"

Bob James was certain it would never come to this.  On May 23, 2011, he received a certified letter from his mortgage holder, Bank of America, telling him that his house was being foreclosed on.  It sounds like a familiar story about a victim of the housing bubble or predatory lending.  But it's not.  James was the victim of something different - Judgment Day.

As one of the key members of a movement aimed at convincing non-believers that this past Saturday, May 21, 2011, would bring about the end of the world, James simply stopped paying his mortgage six months ago.

"It's not like a took this decision on faith."  he said.  "I did my research.  I knew that you got about 6 months before the bank would foreclose.  So I stopped making payments right before what was supposed to be my last Thanksgiving.  I sure as heck wasn't going to give those bastards any more money than I had to." he said.

"I was pretty certain I wouldn't be here today.  Figured I'd be up in the clouds, wearing a white robe and hanging out with Bob Hope and Elvis and The Ultimate Warrior. And no, I don't mean that metaphorically."  he continued. 

"It was weird.  All of us, the people behind the billboards and everything, we all thought we'd get sucked up to heaven and raptured, just like the Simpsons episode.  But, somehow, we're all still around.  The only person missing is Oprah.  What the heck happened to her?"

Oprah's representatives confirmed that she was, indeed, not raptured and is appearing on her new network that nobody watches.  They would not confirm, however, that the TV star does not believe she will be the one doing the rapturing.     

Despite his apparent misstep, James believes he did the right thing. 

"So maybe it didn't happen, but seven billion people were going to die.  I couldn't just sit on my couch watching the '700 Club' and eating Ritz crackers."  says James, who viewed the billboards as a message of hope. "What else was I supposed to do?  I love men ... err .. I mean man.  I love my fellow man.  Yeah, that's what I meant to say.  Definitely not that other thing, that's why we're here in the first place."


So why not, now that the rapture hasn't happened, just fix his mistake?

"Well, it wasn't just the mortgage.  I'm up to my ears in debt.  It was car payments, credit card bills.  I even let my subscription to Readers Digest.  I'm lost without "Humor in Uniform."

So where is all the money?

"I spent it all on billboards.  Or at least that's what Mr. Camping told me, the money was for."

Mr. Camping is the 89-year old Harold Camping the head of a California radio station who first predicted the end of the world in 1994.

"Everybody makes mistakes, right? He just seemed so certain about it this time."  James responded when asked whether someone should really get two chances to predict the end of the world.

"I mean, it's right there in the Bible.  The world will end in 7 days, 7 days equals 7,000 years.  Square root of pi, carry the 1 and it's plain as day - May 21, 2011." said James showing creative math skills.
Although the May 21 prediction is widely dismissed, even mocked, Camping’s followers, like James, see validation in that reaction. After all, they say, Noah met nothing but skepticism when building his ark.

"It probably wasn’t even raining at that time while Noah was building the ark.  People were probably scoffing at him while he cleaned up all that animal dung.  Do you have any idea how much poop an Elephant makes in a day?  Multiply that by like a million and you'll see what Noah was dealing with.  Anyway, imagine how silly all those people felt without their bathing suits on when the flood came." says Joe Gullible, a 39-year-old father of six who is crazy.  "It's the same thing, only this time they'll be without our their spiritual bathing suits drowning in their sins.  And they'll all die. All, the scoffing, scofferers, will die, I tell you.  They'll die!!!!!"

In summary:  Poop.  Scoff.  Death.

Bank of America is expected to commence foreclosure proceedings this week which, given the backlog of foreclosure complaints in the State, should have James without his home three days before the world ends.

When asked how things could have gone so contrary to his beliefs, James remained dumbfounded.

"I mean everything else in there was true.  Adam & Eve, The Great Flood, Zombies.  I figured I couldn't go wrong."

"I guess I got some bad information."