What a week. On the work front, we had to switch our courtroom this week, since there was some repair work to be done in the courtroom this week. This meant, of course, change. I do not adapt well to change in the work environment. And it was so stupid. There is this wall, about 3 feet high, that is front of where the audience sits, seperating the audience from the court personnel. A few months back, we started noticing how the wall was beginning to wobble a bit, and it was only a matter of time before the damned thing fell over and ended up causing a civil lawsuit. So the judge called court administration, and put in an order to do the repair.
Now, mind you, I know nothing about carpentry work. I'll preface my comments with that statement. But my brother does exactly this sort of work, and I guaran-damn-tee you that he, working by himself, would've had the job done in two days, maximum. The idiots from the courthouse that they had working on it, all THREE of them, still hadn't finished it as of this afternoon. That's five days of work, THREE men....and still not done. What a clusterfuck. So because of Moe, Larry & Curly, we're forced to go and use another courtroom for the entire week. It just throws off your timing. I didn't know where my various paperwork was, the occasional court document that had to be prepared would have to first be searched for---ya know, that sort of shit. And so yesterday, we had one of the alltime great screwups in the history of our court division. This woman comes in to court, and according to the file and the court docket, is charged with illegally carrying a raised white cane. She's Haitian, speaking nothing but Creole. So I call her name, which is Aline Desir (or something like that). Stay with we here---this is going to get a little complicated.
So after I call the name, the Haitian woman starts coming forward. It was at this point that another woman in the audience raises her hand and said that her daughter had gotten a notice for the same case. Her daughter's name was Arlene Desir. She was only like 14 yrs old. The information on our court file, the biographical info, was on Arlene's MOTHER. Oh wait, it kept getting better. Apparently the charge, remember...the "raised white cane" thing....that was wrong. The actual charge should have been crossing a street outside a crosswalk. Come to find out, the woman (the original Haitian one--who's name was "Aline') had been hit crossing the street and got taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The officer on scene got her name, but no other info...and as near as we can figure looked in the phone book for any biographical data on this Aline Desir. Only problem is, the info he found was for someone named ARLENE Desir. No wait, he got Arlene's name---but Arlene's mother's info. Are you still with me here? So what we had at this point was.....
1) Wrong defendant
2) Wrong charge
3) Wrong info
Which means.....
Time to call a supervisor.
Oh, but wait---it gets even better. Ya see, all this was discovered relatively late in the morning. Ya know, after the bomb threat. Did I mention there was a bomb threat??? I probably forgot to mention it because you see---no one had told us up to that point either. Again, using top notch government logic, the first floor of the courthouse (make that the TEN FLOOR courthouse) was evacuated. I guess the thinking was that if it was a bomb, and it went off...and ya know....the rest of the building began to slowly begin to collapse on top of it....that I would just grab hold of the strongest table I could find and ride it down to the first floor. Or not.
But anyway, I mention the bomb threat mainly because....well our supervisors were sort of confined to the office. And so were the interpreters in the courthouse, which made it even more difficult to get any info out of the original Aline Desir. Luckily, we had a brand new prosecutor who spoke Creole and was trying to find out what in the blue hell was going on. So one of my supervisors comes up....and wouldn't you know it...it was the one who knew nothing about traffic cases. And the people who would know what was happening? They were basically barricaded into their office at the rear of the first floor--not answering the phone. Finally, the traffic manager came up and--oh yeah, I forgot this part--the charge? It wasn't even criminal. It was a lousy traffic infraction. Oh yeah...and one more bit of news. The young girl's mother....who's biographical info had been put on the ticket by the officer? She started getting the bill for the ambulance!!! Just amazing.
Eventually the traffic divison manager took the whole file and took it with her to try and comprehend all that was screwed up with the court file. I figure she should have it all done by sometime next week.
But wait...I'm not done yet. Remember the bomb? Well, apparently whatever they thought it was worried them to the point where they sent in--not the bomb squad--but one of those freakin ROBOTS to see what the hell it was. I think it ended up being an empty briefcase that someone had left behind. Finally, I get to the end of the workday. I go out to my car and....my air conditioner isn't working right. Now, if I lived in Alaska, I wouldn't give a shit. But in Florida--in August--where the term "Africa hot" applies on a daily basis--your damned right I cared. So I'm driving home, sweating my ass off...and I'm exhausted from a long day at work...one of those not just physically exhausted, but mentally too....and I'm a block from my house. There's a 4-way stop sign. I get up to it, and this guy in a Mazda truck is pulling away and proceeding through. He's all the way through mind you. And I sorta do the old California stop. I admit it. But it wasn't like I was cutting the guy off or anything---I just wanted you to know that for the purpose of this part of the story. All of a sudden, the guy stops the truck and leans out the window.
"That's a fucking four way stop sign asshole! Can't you read the fucking stop sign!"
Now mind you...I truly can't convey to you how psychotic the guy looked. Total road rage going on. And he finally drove away, still cursing me out. And after I parked my car at my house and went inside, I started thinking about how situations like that are what ends up with someone being shot and killed. And I also thought of something else......
Exactly who did I piss off to deserve a day like this?
Holy crap...I couldn't wait to get to bed.
Later,
Jeff
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