There's a house in foreclosure in Bloomington.

I fell in love with it the first time I saw it. I was so distracted, staring at it, that I missed the weird quick turn I have to take there and got turned around, and had to go back to the last mailbox I'd delivered and try again. It's blue, with white lattice work and bay windows, a big tree in the yard with a circular bench around it, a gazebo in the back.

Shortly before the housing market tanked, a "For Sale by Owner" sign went up. The regular carrier on that route told me that the couple who lived there had moved here from back East somewhere. He had serious health issues, and they hoped that our more arid climate would help him. It didn't, and he died. She was selling because she was moving back to be with her family. The carrier's wife also thought the house was beautiful, so he called the number and asked about the house. I only remember two of the things he told me she'd said. There was a mother-in-law apartment attached to the house, and she was asking $489,000 for it. I could never afford that, so I wrote it off as an impossible dream, and just stared longingly every time I delivered mail out there.

Yesterday, the regular carrier told me it's in foreclosure. "You can buy it!" he said. "They'll take the highest bid. Twenty-five bucks!" I sort of rolled my eyes at him. But it started me thinking, and while I was delivering the first part of that route I built up a scenario in my head where I somehow could buy it for a couple thousand. I'm good at unattainable dreams.

When I reached the house, I parked the truck and went up to read the foreclosure notice on the window. The auction is the 27th, at 1 pm. The money is due in a cashier's check to the bank's lawyer in Salt Lake the 28th. The real hitch is that they require $5000 in addition to whatever the final, highest bid is. I'm not sure why that five grand was such a kick in the teeth - there's no way that a house like that, even depreciated as it is now, would go for the couple thousand I could scrounge up, so it's not like I really had a chance. But this is the closest I'll ever come to owning that house, and it's incredibly depressing that it's still so out of reach.

I console myself (sort of) with the thought that I've never been inside and have no idea what it's really like, that the grass is dead now, that it might need expensive restoration, that it would take more work to keep up both inside and out, that I absolutely hate moving.

But the bay window would be the perfect place for a baby grand (which I don't own and can't afford). And if I picked up that house for a song, I could take out a home equity loan and pay everything else off, and get right-side up with my current mortgage, and sell the town house, or even keep it and rent it out.

Oh well, right?