Tag Archives: life

Occupied: Day 46

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So I can’t write in detail about the Dec. 22 eviction court date because the dude got Legal Aid, and astonishingly enough, this introduced some hilarity to events as well as cemented a final date of Jan. 5.

I respect and support Legal Aid. It’s not my suggestion that Legal Aid is to be laughed at; they do amazing work for important reasons. So let me explain just one thing about the day in court, and we will save the other funny stories for after the ruling has been made (Jan. 5).

The Legal Aid lawyer sent (on the Thursday before the Monday court date) a demand something called a Bill of Particulars. The bill asked seven questions, requiring documents for each.

My lawyer said this was highly unusual for an eviction, and since three weeks is the standard response time, it could be seen as a stall tactic to keep the dude in housing for another month while they thought of something else. I have started looking up some of the ways Legal Aid plans its strategies. There’s not a lot blatantly available on the Net, but a few people who have dealt with them in good faith have suggested that stalling and draining the coffers of the evicting party seem to be common approaches.

So my lawyer walked into the courtroom prepared to tell the judge that we would reply to the bill within two working days, because this had dragged out long enough. I assured him I could pull together all the documentation for the seven questions within that time, the bulldozers in my front yard notwithstanding.

(We had a plumbing issue: tree roots in the pipes. Not a hard fix, but an immediate need, and hence the guys showed up the same morning I was prepping for court.) My friend Amelia took pity on me and offered to take me back to her house so I wouldn’t have to time my bathroom visits with dashes to Walmart and the grocery store. And so we could print the documents there.

But my lawyer never even got a chance to say this. The judge had been very kind and prescient with the people before me, all of whom were having to own up to debts of a few thousand dollars, mostly from overdue rent. He joked with them about peanut butter balls and Christmas traditions and put them at ease even as he bonded them over for debt collection. He was great at reading people quickly, and matching energy.

So before my lawyer even spoke,the judge had sized us all up, and he said, “Right, my next available trial date is Jan. 5. So everyone will have their paperwork in by this Friday.”

A slight slump appeared in the shoulders of the Legal Aid lawyer. I almost felt sorry for her. This might be called getting hoisted by your own petard, when you try a tactic and it turns out creating difficulties for you.

Perhaps the judge knew that the court would be closed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Which meant his “By Friday” meant “by 28 hours from now.”

Amelia and I bought booze, picked up a ream of paper, and went to her house. One hundred and twenty pages later, on the morning Dec. 23, with my friend driving the getaway car, we left copies with my attorney, filed one bundle with the court, and drove the third to Marion with a slip the Legal Aid office there could sign to show they had receive the documents on Tuesday.

Then we went to lunch.

The many funny stories that were part of this process, and the other funny things that happened in court, I will wait to tell you. My friend Laura was right: this is gonna make a helluva book.

The First Time Your Dad Forgets Who You Are

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The first time your dad forgets who you are, annoyance might supplant sadness.

We were going into Costco to replace his lost hearing aid. Shoppers for the holidays raced about, all of them surly. So was the girl in the Santa hat, checking cards at the door. I scanned our card and had my dad sit down while I went back out to get an electric cart. A kind employee showed me how to work the controls after he saw me back into the building.

When I came back in the cart, Santa Hat Guard made me scan the card again.

I parked the cart in front of Dad, who said, “Oh thank you; now I just need to wait for my daughter.”

We were in a high stress situation. That’s more or less what accelerates the Alzheimer’s in certain moments, for lack of a simpler explanation. Being in a different place, not knowing the rules, pushes harder on what’s left and breaks it up faster.

I held up his hearing aid box. “Ready to go do this?”

He smiled. “Yep, just gotta wait for my daughter and then I’m ready.”

I thought for a second, went outside, and came back. Santa Hat glared at me. I swiped my card. Again.

“Ready to go, Dad?” I said cheerfully.

“There you are. I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

A lovely woman works at the Hearing Aid department: Dani. She taught him slowly and steadily how to keep the device in his ear. When they finished, he wanted to buy a big screen TV.

We already have a big screen TV.

We got eggs, and the cashews he likes. We left the scrum of shoppers and screech of carols over the loudspeaker. And as he hauled himself into the car by the door handle, he said, “I need pop tarts.”

We went to Walmart, where they were also kind to him. Found him a cart, kept him company when he announced, after we’d checked out, that he also needed Pepsi. I ran back and got it while the nice lady in the Santa hat and blue vest and Grinch onesie (they were having PJ employee day) kept him company.

On my way back with the Pepsi, a sudden balloon of red and black plaid wriggled backwards from a narrow crack in a display of pie-making supplies, and turned into a human behind. Standing upright, the filled-out plaid pants became a human with cute pony tails in a two-piece buffalo plaid. She grinned at me, looking very like an elf who had just successfully fought a chimney.

For no reason whatsover, I said, “My dad forgot my name.”

She blinked once, then shrugged, “Prob’ly so he won’t hafta buy you a present. He’ll remember it by New Year’s.”

I had to laugh. She patted me on the shoulder as I walked on by, then slid her red-and-black flanneled body between cans of condensed milk and assorted spices once again.

Dad was waiting with Santa Hat Nice Grinch Lady.

“There she is!” Ms. Grinch pointed, smiling, “See, you’re going home for Christmas!” To me she said with a wink, “He was a little worried you’d forgotten him.”

“How would I forget you?” I said to him. “You’re my dad.”