Drama, Part 2

Before I get into the ridiculous thing that happened next in the story let me set-up a little background.  My soon-to-be ex-step-father is a big man.  He is about 6 feet tall and over 300 pounds.  He was in the military and served in Iraq the first time around.  He had some sort of special forces training so he is good with a gun and knows how to make explosives.  Personally, I was never comfortable around him as he always carries a side arm and his mental state is questionable though it didn't always seem that way.  He is on permanent disability from some sort of accident that happened in 2003 while he was a truck driver and takes so many drugs it's a wonder he isn't in a stupor most of the time.  He claims he is always in pain yet he is able to unload huge bails of hay from his truck, take care of 5 horses, a bull, 3 pigs and a bunch of chickens (though "take care" is a relative terms considering the bull's stall didn't get mucked out at all last winter), and he has been building fences and chopping wood.  Not bad for someone being taken care of by the state!  He knows nothing about finances or budgets and got in trouble with some Internet money order scheme earlier in the year.  I think the picture has been drawn sufficiently so now for the ridiculous part.

The day after my mom's birthday I went to pay the retainer for the lawyer.  I had it on good authority that my step-dad had been seen going into the courthouse that day so I mentioned it to the lawyer.  She grabbed me and we walked next door to the courthouse to see if she could get some information.  It turned out the asshole had filed for a protective order against abuse by my mother.  This big man with special forces training was scared of my 5 foot 4 inch, never hurt a soul in her life, mother.  Some of you met my mom a couple years ago in Vegas and I don't recall any of you recoiling in fear that she was going to beat the crap out of you.  Seriously, how ridiculous and what a waste of the courts time.

Since it was a Friday the order was granted.  Apparently if you want a bogus protective order granted Friday is the day to do it.  Judges don't want to take the chance of something bad happening over the weekend so they grant just about all of them.  A hearing was set up for the following Friday.

In the meantime my mom got upset all over again.  She didn't, and still doesn't, understand why he was doing all of this.  I mean, we know it was a ploy for him to keep her out of the house but still, a protective order???  I was back in California by the time the hearing happened and the order was thrown out.  My step-father was told he could remain in the house and my mom had made up a list of the items she wanted from the house and the judge said she had until November 1st to set up a time to get the stuff.  Of course my step father interpreted the order to mean that he could pick the day and time regardless of whether it was convenient for my mother.  That day and time turned out to be 2pm EST today.  Wait until you hear what happened with that.

Drama, Part One

I've been back from Maine for 2 weeks and in that time I've had a sinus infection and a bad allergic reaction to not one, but 2 drugs.  This is all just part of the joy of being me I guess.

I went to Maine to deal with what I called a family emergency.  It was more like family drama but no one looks at you funny when you say "emergency" they just assume someone is dieing and leave you alone.  

It all started on September 12th when I got a text from my mom telling me to call her.  When I eventually got through she was extremely upset.  It seems my jackass of a step-father had her served with divorce papers while she was at work.  Let's forget about how humiliating that is for a second, she was completely blindsided.  I'm not exactly sure how the next few hours played out but she ended up going home to find that the bastard had changed the locks on the door.  She had been locked out of her own house.  He did let her in to get some clothes but he basically kicked her out with no money and no where to go.

I spent the next hour trying to talk my mom down off a ledge.  She was being hysterical and unreasonable and scaring the crap out of me.  The second she suggested disappearing I knew I had to get on a plane.  I set her up in a hotel for the night and got on the red eye to Portland.  

When I got off the plane I took one look at my mom and thought for sure someone had died while I was in the air.  She looked devastated and when she hugged me I didn't think she was going to let go.  There was a lot of crying over the next few days as well as a visit to the house to pick up more stuff.  I resisted the urge to kill the bastard, since he carries a side arm with him at all times, and did my best to keep my mom from doing anything stupid.

I helped my mom hire a lawyer and set her up to live with my grandmother, her ex-mother in law.  My grandmother has always liked her better than my step-mother so she had no problem taking my mom in.  My mom also has her dog Toffee that she took from the bastard so I was comfortable with the set up.  My mom had a birthday while I was there and we had a small celebration for that.  Things were looking up when the asshole went and did the most ridiculous thing ever.....