Seven years ago my sister Cheryl moved to Nicaragua. She had been threatening to do it for two years before that, but it's hard to take someone seriously when they threaten to move to a third-world country even though they are not escaping a homicide charge or anything. Instead, she was a fairly law-abiding cocktail waitress in Las Vegas, which is the ideal job if you ask me.

But then the day came, as she always said it would, when she got in her truck, pointed it south and kept driving until she reached Nica-damn-ragua. I did not hear from her for six solid weeks, making me worry (a little) that she had gotten dismembered by a Santeria cult and leaving me the hassle of having to fly down there to recover her spinal cord from a cauldron.

But that did not happen. She made it. When she finally called me to tell me she was safe, she had already bought herself a bar in Granada, named it Zoom's, and was, like, happy. Today that bar is one of the most popular spots in that ancient city, a corner-of-the-world kinda place, where hordes of crusty ex-patriots and conspiracy theorists gather to predict the downfall of society. The last time I visited, two booze-addled old dudes, both "ex" Americans, both with hides tough and tanned like strips of weathered leather, tried to convince me to buy property down there.

"You're gonna need a place to run when America goes to crap," they said.

But I just smiled, wrote a chapter about them in my third book, Trailer Trashed, and went on feeling sorry for my sister Cheryl, who had to live in a country with no viable credit-lending system and a Wal-Mart that did not even carry decent DVD players. I, on the other hand, got to live in Georgia, where, if nothing else, Americans were able to own property. I flew home hoping my sister wouldn't mind sleeping in the trailer in my driveway when the day came that she'd have to limp home after having lost everything.

But that did not happen. My sister Cheryl is in fact coming home today, but if she's limping it's only because she is weighed down with the wad of cash she was able to save while holed up safely out of the country during North America's big bracing of the economy tsunami. In fact, during Cheryl's South American sojourn, the airline I worked for went bankrupt, the newspaper I wrote for went bankrupt, the car company I bought from went bankrupt, and even the bank I bank at looks to be headed the same way.

And while she's here she does not need to stay in the trailer in my driveway, either, because she is coming here to buy her own home. With cash. She has sent me a wonderful array of links to a collection of homes facing foreclosure in my area, all offered for less than what you would normally pay for a used truck, and gleefully asking me to help her choose one, as though it were all as simple as plucking a berry from a bush.

"What about this one?" She emailed me, indicating a small brick ranch with a roof and walls and other amenities you would never expect for a price that stupefyingly low. I kind of dreaded the fact that she'd be living right down the way from me, considering her habit of slamming back shots and coughing up carcinogens from the pack of Camels she smokes every day. I warily asked her when she expected to move back home, trying to estimate when I'd have to once more fake like I'd become a born-again Christian, which in the past has been the only effective way to ensure she kept a respectable distance.

But that didn't happen. "Lord, I'm not moving back there," she emailed. "This is just an investment. The U.S. has gotten way too third-world for me."

Hollis Gillespie is one of Atlanta's best known literary personalities. She has published three books, and a fourth is on the way. Gillespie for years was a columnist for Creative Loafing. She now writes for the Georgia Online News Service and Atlanta magazine, giving readers her unorthodox and often-hilarious point of view on life in Georgia. She also runs a writing academy.   [full bio]