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.