Burying St. Joseph

A friend of mine has been trying to sell her house with little success. With the economy in the toilet, it's a buyer's market and no buyers are shopping at her house.

I think she should bring out the big guy. The most famous real estate mogul of all time. No, not Donald Trump. She needs Joseph. And she needs to bury him in her yard, like all Catholics desperate to sell their homes.

A number of years ago my husband and I were trying to sell our very small starter home...in the winter...in Wisconsin.

• We had no dishwasher (not counting me).
• We had a toddler who would have won the gold if toy hurdling were an Olympic event.
• We had a dog that shed the equivalent of an alpaca ever 3 weeks, and a vacuum cleaner on its last breath.
• We had realtors who were kind enough to give us 4 1/2 minute advance notice of showings.

The first week on the market was fine. Dave and I would entertain ourselves by using the baby monitor to eavesdrop on the conversations potential buyers were having with their realtors. But after 6-weeks or so, things started to get desperate. It was time to invite the patron saint of home and family to take a nap in our frozen yard.
So I brought out my nativity set and attempted to pick out Joseph from the other guys. After close inspection, I was able to eliminate the shepherds (they were the ones holding onto brown candy canes). I figured the kings were the ones holding the presents. The remaining guy was looking down lovingly, presumably at a new baby. Bingo!
Next step...bury him in the yard. This is no easy task with 2 feet of snow over frozen earth. But did we want to sell the house? YES!
I put on my parka, grabbed the shovel and my man Joe and after about 20 minutes of hard labor he was buried. And I was confident that we'd have an offer by the end of the week.
A week passed... no offer. I mentioned this to a friend of mine at work and she started asking specific questions like:

• "Did you bury him in the front yard or the back yard?"
• "Was his head pointing down or up?"
• "Which direction was he looking?"

Crap! I had no idea that you not only had to bury St. Joseph in your yard, but there were specific procedures you had to follow as part of the burial. According to my friend (who had just sold her house with Joe's help), you have to bury him in the front yard, between the For Sale sign and the house, with his head pointing down and his face looking at the house. And she informed me that he should be wrapped in a cloth, and a paper towel is not a cloth. This was getting very complicated.
I wasn't certain how I had originally stuck Joe in the ground, but I knew for sure he was in the wrong place and chances were that he wasn't facing the right way. But, did I want to sell the house? YES!
I put on my parka, grabbed the shovel and a 'cloth' and was lucky enough to find the spot where Joe was resting. I moved him to another spot in the yard, wrapped him in the cloth and stuck him head down facing the house.
Did the house sell? Yes. My husband tells me it's because we put on a new roof, but I know better.
St. Joseph should have gotten at least half the commission.