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Occupied: Day 53

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Happy New Year! It’s weird that a fresh new start on the calendar has no point in life to mark it as this saga drags on, but there we are.

I can’t talk about everything right now, and we go back to court on Monday. This should be for the final eviction hearing, but “final” is a small word in legal matters.

At the hearing Dec. 22 the legal aid lawyer had filed paperwork to spread the time out. It didn’t work as the judge shorted the times, but on Dec. 23 my lawyer was in another court in another county, and the legal aid lawyer at the eviction there had filed the exact same motions. And got six weeks to get the stuff and look it over.

Courts vary widely, which I found out after going to inspect my property Dec. 29. The judge had set the time for noon and allowed me to bring a plumber. We arrived at 11:45 and right from the getgo the guy was so aggressive, my plumber refused to get out of the car. He slumped in his seat, eyes wide as saucers, as the guy railed at him.

So that went badly and got worse, as after I had to enter the house by myself, that also went badly. I’m not often frightened. I’m no shrinking violet. But I wound up going back to my attorney’s office and bursting into tears. And seeking a protective order.

The preliminary order was denied. His threat to me was “conditional” because he had said “if you do that again,” then the threat.

Another woman was seeking a protective order, seated in the pew behind me at court. She whispered to me, during a break when the judge went to look something up, that by those standards her threat was also conditional. Her downstairs neighbor had said if she turned him in for smoking again, he would come at her with a baseball bat.

We squeezed hands, then he denied me, and called her up. I pray she got hers.

So now there is a hearing on a protective order set for the same time as the eviction. Life gets interesting, doesn’t it? I spent a night away from my house while getting some locks in order. The guy has sent two messages about coming to collect stuff from my house. Monday can’t come fast enough.

Boxing Day at Walmart

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So the morning after Christmas is called Boxing Day in the United Kingdom, because traditionally those who were wealthy would box up things they no longer wanted and give them to their household servants, or to “the poor.”

In Walmart, Dec. 26 is called Boxing Day because of what’s happening in the Christmas clearance aisle.

I went to get cat food for Molly and O’Carolan, and coffee creamer for myself. At 6:30 am I figured the place might not yet be crowded, so what the heck, why not stroll past clearance because it’s fun to find ornaments one can enhance with crochet or decoupage and give next year. Like I did these polar bears.

The three aisles held a dozen women each, and they were not eyeing one another in a friendly way, nor yielding prime real estate with their carts parked in front of their targets. I left my cart at the top and started to walk in, but a woman’s eyes became daggers as she glared at me.

Competition, her face said.

Okay…. you know what, let’s just back away slowly. Who needs another ornament to crochet?

I don’t use wrapping paper, but passed that aisle heading back to my cart. The occupants were engaged in a free-for-all fencing duel. The women were being Southern Polite, which means they figured all actions were justified because they were taking good care of their families by saving money for next year. (Think the milk aisle after a snow forecast.) Ergo it was fair to swing for eyeglasses and hearing aids with the paper tubes.

From a safe distance, I watched. And wondered. Sure, I’d been cheerful about taking a look, but I can crochet an ornament as easily as crochet around a commercially produced ornament, to be honest. It just takes longer.

Those women in the aisle, did they believe they were getting ahead in life, sticking it to the man, spending time wisely by saving money? By spending money? Economics lessons, business classes, and social justice Ted talks on marketing strategies flowed through my brain, not sticking to one theme, more jumbled up like competing Christmas bells in discordance. Was this aisle in this moment what most smart shoppers came down to being? Not eschewing the stuff, but looking for the stuff on sale? Were these women gaming the system, playing the game, or pawns moved by unseen hands across a retail chessboard?

It’s not my intention to sound smug or condescending. We need what we need, we want what we want. Grandkids are born expecting things. Which perhaps proves the point that underneath our choices on how to spend Boxing Day, as Anthropology 101 teaches us, we are making less choices of our own free will than we think we are, because we start with the suppositions society has programmed into us from infancy.

Wrapping paper is life. Wrapping paper is love. Wrapping paper on sale is the ultimate good. According to the Laws of…. who?

I got my cat food and creamer and went home and sat in front of the fire, crocheting a possum scarf while blasting Mannheim Steamroller. Somebody had ordered the scarf from me, so yes, I am a comfortable capitalist—especially when sitting at home in front of my wood stove.

Choose wisely, friends.