Just Another Day in Court

Court. I hate going to court. Nobody looks like they are having a good time there. I know I certainly don’t. My ex-husband, aka ‘the Ex’, and I have been at it on one particular issue for a year now.

We have had our hearing postponed 7 times as of today! 7 times! Now, we need to go back in two weeks because we didn’t request a ‘pre-read’. I guess our case is so hard to understand that the judge refuses to hear our sides until he has had plenty of time to read everything and it’s our job to remind the court to ask the judge to read the file. That’s how it works.

To request one of these things, you have to call the right number and get a hold of just the right clerk. They don’t make that easy either, you have to call only between the hours of 9:00am and noon exactly three days prior to the scheduled hearing. When you call they ask questions that do not make sense to me and they cannot tell me what they mean, either, so I just make it up as I go and hope that the judge will figure it out. The other option is to spend literally 10 hours in the law facilitator’s office to ask a question. Sometimes, when they are too busy, after waiting to ask my question for 10 hours, I’m told I will have to come back. Being too poor to pay for an attorney really sucks.

When I could afford it, I had great attorneys who took care of all this stuff. I had an attorney for my business on retainer, and then I had an attorney during my divorce. But nowadays, it’s just me on a wing and a prayer.

One cool thing happened on the way to court, early this morning. I was walking down the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building and there was this gardener trimming the edge of the grass. When he saw me passing him, he stopped his week-whacking so I didn’t get sprayed and, in Spanish, he asked me how I was today. I was a little stunned that he was speaking to me and I stumbled in my response that I was well, thank you (ahem, in Spanish, of course). He told me I looked very beautiful, also in Spanish, which I think sounds so much better. I beamed. I thanked him. That certainly doesn’t happen everyday and definitely picked me up. Very cool. Thanks, Downtown Guy With the Weed-whacker!