Joanne called me up, totally distraught.  Her apartment in Lincoln Park had been totally ransacked.  She said the only call she made before she called me was the cops.  I hurried over there.  They had taken everything.  I mean EVERYTHING.  All I could see in there was some of her furniture, a lot of which had been toppled or destroyed, and her kitchen units.  All her wonderful artwork was gone, some of it hers.  They got her jewelry, her CD players, her computer system—they even took her cell phone, she cried.  I hugged her to comfort her and invited her to stay with me.  “Is it clean?” she asked through her tears.  “Uh—I can clean it.”  I live in a studio off Elston Avenue, and let’s just say I’m not—all that domesticated?  But poor Joanne.  I didn’t know what to tell her.  She had her purse, but there wasn’t much in it.  Maybe, I suggested, you ought to file for bancarrota.  She looked at me in disbelief.  “Why?”  Because you could possibly get a loan up front, once you’ve proved that you no longer own anything.  Joanne reminded me that she still had her VW and that she had a certain amount of money saved from her last job in the bank.  That kind of killed that idea.  It sounded as though she wouldn’t be able to file if she still had at least a few thousand dollars left.  With a sinking feeling, I told Joanne that she might have to take out at least some of that money and live off of it while she still looks around for work.