A Day In The Life

Well this might be quite a post. But I had QUITE a day at work. I'll put it this way: every time I walked out the door, my boss told me to please come back. Let's dive right in.

Customer #1:

I have nicknamed him $25 million. He was in yesterday and filed 3 motions to stay his eviction, which were all denied. I had a feeling he would be in today since his eviction was scheduled for 11:00am today. Sure enough, about 10:00AM (a mere hour before his eviction I might point out) he came in and proceeded to argue with me for about 35 minutes. He (a) demanded to see the judge, (b) threatened to sue the judge and court for $25 million, (c) declared the judge was denying him his rights, (d) threatened to take the law into his own hands [and yelled that he BETTER NOT be arrested for it], (e) explained to me how the judge was discriminating against him because he was white (to which I replied that the judge didn't even know what he looked like), (f) threatened to barricade himself in his home; (g) demanded that I tell him where the judge was so he could go talk to him, and (h) explained his story over and over again. Then demanded that I help him.

Initially I tried to reason with him. Then I came to my senses and realized it would be like reasoning with a drunk- utterly pointless and completely ineffective. I ended up just listening, trying to keep him calm, and saying over and over "I don't recommend that you do that."

He filed a 4th motion to stay his eviction which was also denied, so I'm only assuming his stuff is out on the street as I type. The amazing part is when I suggested to him that he simply pay what he owes to stop the eviction, he yelled that he would NEVER pay the rent because his landlord was trying to extort money from him. Uh, okay. Apparently I'm mistaken that you actually have to pay money when you rent an apartment.

And that was only the beginning.

Customer # 2

A 73 year old man who came up with a soiled t shirt, a HUGE magnifying glass, and never opened his eyes when talking to me. He wanted to file a peace order but started off on a tangent which included the following statements: (I promise you that I am not making any of this up!)

- He used to be a millionaire, but the IRS hates him so they took away all his money.
- His wife is a polygamist. She had another husband but she didn't know he wasn't dead.
- He had a son who bought him a car, but when I asked his son's name, he told me it was Smith because his son had changed his name a few times because he was a doctor and didn't want anyone to know his name.
- Later when I asked him if he had any children, he said no because (AND I QUOTE) he had "never had sex to have children."
- He had five doctorate and five post-doctorate degrees.
- He was the great-great-great-great-great grandson of President Pierce.
- He was also related to some man in the boat with George Washington.
- He was ALSO related to Grace Kelly.
- He provided me with much-unwanted details of his health problems which I will not relate to you.
- He told me he didn't know if he could stay in the courtroom because he didn't bring any diapers.
- The government hates him.

You can imagine that I was drained when he finally left. I just.... no, there are no words.

There was a stream of people with ridiculous questions who didn't listen to the answers. It was a bit of a blur.

Customer # I have no idea

A Korean man came in to file a protective order. It took me FOREVER to find out if he needed an interpreter, then explain to him that we wouldn't be able in two hours to get a Korean interpreter, THEN I found out it wasn't even HIS name on the petition, it was his wife's. So, THEN I had to explain to him over and over that his wife had to be there. He's supposed to come back tomorrow morning. Something to look forward to. Yay.

Customer # I definitely lost count now

A lady came in with "questions". That's always a bad start because they generally want free legal advice, someone to vent to, or anything I can't give them. At first she wanted us to force the local mediation service (comprised of volunteers) to call her back. Um. Ok. Cuz we can do that. After a while, she finally decided to file a peace order against a former girlfriend who was threatening not to take care of the cat anymore. She even asked for the judge to order visitation with the cat.

I spent alot of time outside when I got off work. Thankfully the weather was gorgeous!