I don't know everything about what happened, but I guess there was some kind of squabble in his family over who got what. Anyway, it sat there empty f...r two or three years, and then, one morning in the early spring, wetter than hell, we got up, and discovered it had burned to the ground. Officially, it was electrical, or some damn thing, but I always figured it was either for the insurance, or else someone wanted to spite someone. Frankly, I thought it had gone up for tax sale; maybe someone. "What's with the girl over there? Does she think that if she scratches that thing enough she'll win a car?" We both burst out laughing, Stacy had her earphones on and was tapping her feet to whatever she was listening to, one hand holding her phone and the other hand… you get the idea!"I don't know," I whispered while giggling. "I reckon that from now on she'll make sure her boyfriend is wearing three condoms and a shopping bag before she lets him near her again though!" That set us off. And women like that only get better as they age."How are you holding up?" she asked. I shrugged my shoulders."It's okay, Honey, we're friends," she said. "I know you spent a lot of time with the old guy. I often saw him whenever he came over to visit. He'd be out there talking to you as you pampered the queen of the neighborhood."Tanya was talking, of course, about my Mustang. She always told me that if her husband Rick spent as much time pampering her as I do my car, she'd be one happy. “Where the hell did you learn to do that?” he asked between gasping for breaths of air. I was panting, but not nearly as badly as he was.“When I was twelve, I practiced against a tree every day until I could maintain that pace for four minutes. Long before that, I managed to defeat my teacher who was your size,” I explained.Next, they took me inside to a gym with padded floors, one obviously used for martial arts. The martial arts evaluation was anticlimactic; I took the instructor down three.