Richard’s kept his house immaculate.  He toiled many hours to make sure there were no weeds in his yard and he applied the perfect blend of fertilizer to his beautiful flower gardens.  His home had once been featured in “House and Gardens”.   It was hard work keeping the place up like that and he found himself slipping up occasionally, not in the yard of course, everyone could see that and first impressions were important.  But, sometimes when a friend would drop by he would quickly grab any  mess lying around and toss it into the basement.  He needed to keep up his reputation.  Unfortunately since no one saw the basement, he never got around to cleaning it up.  Year after year he just kept piling up the messes in his basement.  Truth be told, he got to enjoy how he felt when he was down there with the mess, it was just more comfortable and he didn’t have to worry about cleaning it up or anyone seeing it.  Finally he started sleeping in the basement and then just moved down there permanently, that way the rest of the house stayed clean and he only needed to work on the yard. 

 Richard invited guests to his lovely home for a barbeque.  As usual everyone oooohed and ahhhh’d over the lovely yard and exquisite interior.  Richard soaked up the compliments.  After all it was a lot of work to keep the place looking nice.  His conscience did bother him  a bit about the basement, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. 

Just as the dinner party began to wind down one of his guests excitedly pointed to smoke pouring forth from his basement window.  They all dialed 911 at once and a fire truck arrived on the scene in record time.  Richard wished all his guests would leave before everyone discovered the mess in his basement.  But, a fire seems to hold everyones attention and they stood rivited to watching the flames.  The firemen did their best to put out the fire but due to all the junk in the basement causing an incredibly hot fire the entire house burnt down.

As people turned to leave they heard the words to the song, “Don’t Build Your House On Sandy Ground” float through the air from the open windows of a nearby church.