The Case of an Ill-Conceived, Misbegotten Storage Idea.

Here is my new title for this piece.  Everything is still the same in terms of content; only the title has changed.

 

 

 

 

(OK, it's a bit dramatic and is verging on the tabloid and sensationalism and in poor taste, in terms of aesthetic description----yet a truer depiction of events that are concerned in this entry).

By now, I trust to my dismay that is yet indifferent to your daily concerns, whoever they are-- that the time for a sense of closure of this book of mine has arrived.  A book that iis ultimately concerned with nothing beyond my own trivial concerns and for imaginary entities inhabiting my imagination, with little if any connection to reality nor to truth to which claims to be committed  

To update, in regard to the case below--the Defendants in this legal dispute over  were never brought to trial and, so far as I am concerned, this case is now closed and  resolved as I see no reason for having things when there are no people.  Nor see any good reason for getting worked up over material things any more, even if they are, say-- your entire possessions accrued over a lifetime.  I am also providing an update to this particular entry say that at the time of this writing of this introduction (which is now two years later), I have even broken up with my fiance who was mentioned in passing below and have returned home, to live with my aging parents, and am living in my parent's house with no furniture in their back yard with the exception of two computers, a guitar, lots of paper, and a broken down bed..  I only mention this as a matter-of-fact because I do not really care to be "rescued" nor for the attention, but only as it relates to the story below.   I have found that it is not so terribly grim  or pitiable of a situation as it seems to be on the surface, in any case.

 

  Now, with this brief note of introduction , let us get on with our final introductory remark as we turn next to our third and final introductory note/parental advisory or what have you.  although stranger than fiction, I will confirm that everything below  is 100% factual just as it has been reported and may be, in fact, astonishingly stranger than fiction. 

 

Here is what some readers have said about these works:

 

 "A truly immense and mindboggling literary masterpiece that is relevant to the times of yesteryear, that just so also happens to be an official Statement Of Claim in a Small Claims Court--"

 

--b.m.

 

"Barbi With No E. Plase is perhaps one of the most prolific and comprehensive thinkers of our century, ."

 

.s. pidjerk     

 

       .:n The Case of an Ill-Conceived, Misbegotten Storage Idea.amespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

                  An Actual Amendment to My Statement of Claim

              Case #05-671CS Magistrate Court, Cherokee County, GA

                                 April 18, 2005

                          by Barbi Hammond, Plaintiff

To lay out the following situation, which, because of its content requires first a disclosure, under electronic oath, that it is in no way and at no point or in any sense or form, whether from beginning to end, or at any point in between, to be regarded whatsoever, or misconstrued, or dismissed as hypothetical, concocted, or embellished renderings of events and people in litigation, although they are seemingly so in many respects, as a consequence of the bizarre nature of the subject matter and the seemingly pointless inclusions and analyses of which were critical for stating and proving essential facts and events of this case filed by the Plaintiff, and are unapologetically given as presentation of the facts, just as they are.  The Plaintiff will affirm that all events and people described herein are demonstrably factual, true, and accurate in content and depiction just so described, without need for embellishment, and are painstakingly rendered as objectively and as scientifically as possible by the Plaintiff, to the extent that such colorful events and freaks of nature can possibly permit under these austere conditions that are called for and demanded of in a court of law, and rightly so; as in a clinical environment or a lab demands, and not as a circus or a zoo demands. But now, without further ado and tripe, with the exception of the following hypothetical diagram of a situation presented geometrically and pictorially for the hearing impaired and for the symbolically challenged, I would like to point out that they are merely geometric and numeric representations of the facts and people, are only abstractions, and are not to be treated as literal facts in and of themselves on the basis of their letters, symbols, dots, and pretty little shapes, which themselves are not the facts but are representations of the facts, to make certain that everyone is aware and onboard and to eliminate any unecessary confusion as a consequence of this presentation method.

Let us try to imagine a triangle, in which there are points A, B, and C. The points respectively refer to three adults in litigation, the Plaintiff, former live-in girl friend, Barbi Hammond, Point A; the Primary Defendant, divorced mother of four, Marie Reynolds, Point B; and the Secondary Defendant, and divorced father of four, Chad Hargrave, Point C. Within this plane of Triangle ABC exists many infinite points to represent all children of the world, but the Plaintiff will only draw four for all practical purposes, to represent the four children, group BC, between the two defendants, B and C, who are now divorced.

By the given set of circumstances, as they presented themselves in October 2003, there appeared to be a configuration in need of a reconfiguration, because the Point A, the Plaintiff, the then live-in girl friend of the Secondary Defendant, Point C, is about to move out after a year and a half and take her furniture, z, which is virtually everything in the Point C's apartment, to move back to her mom and dad's house in South Georgia, thereby leaving Point C and group BC with only a blow-up mattress and a TV. Oh, and a washer and a dryer, stove, and refrigerator, should we include as furniture appliances, most of which were already pre-equipped in the unit long before this family had even lived here.

If any other furniture existed at this point in time belonging to the Secondary Defendant that I may have overlooked, aside from appliances and besides that of a blow-up mattress and TV, it is because I was not aware of them or never noticed them; yet I stand to be corrected. However, the possibility of forgetting or never noticing a piece of furniture, no matter how small or insignificant, in a small one bedroom apartment cleared of other pieces, would of course be negligible and virtually nil, unless one is blind or feebleminded; or perhaps the furniture had been acquired in later months, such as the sectional sofa left by the Secondary Defendant's mother several months later--but at the time did not exist in the apartment. Yet, even with the addition of the Secondary Defendant's mother's sectional sofa minus the furniture and property potentially taken by the Plaintiff, its presence alone would still seem to be inadequate to serve as replacement furniture for a house full of very nice furniture that fortunately would be provided by the Plaintiff as a kind gesture. Thus, for several months, at least, and with approximately six or seven months remaining on the Secondary Defendant's lease on his apartment, it came to the Plaintiff's attention prior to her departure that temporarily leaving her furniture behind might be beneficial if not necessary for the remaining occupants in this apartment for their continued sense of safety, comfort, and overall sense of well-being, without which the occupants would be left with a blow-up mattress and a TV.

Certain other factors at the time had also compelled the Plaintiff to leave my personal property temporarily behind. First, I needed to finish repainting, restoring, and reflooring an empty house in the back yard of my parents' house in preparation for my furniture's arrival to Quitman, Georgia, a rural town in South Georgia near the Florida line where my parents live, once the Secondary Defendant had finished with borrowing my furniture. Second, the Secondary Defendant gave me an ultimatum to either find a job or go back to live with my mom and dad in Quitman, if all I cared to do was sit around and wait for a hand-out like some lazy welfare recipient, which I suppose to the Secondary Defendant would seem disgraceful or un-American because I am no longer a hard-working, tax-paying citizen as he was or is, and as such the tax burden is shifted from me, perhaps, ultimately to him, and to other honest, decent and hard-working taxpayers who aren't afraid of working or hard work to achieve the American Dream, so perhaps I am seen as yet another burden to society who should fall through the cracks, for everyone's sakes, despite the fact that I was declared temporarily and totally disabled until further notice at the time and was on Long Term Disability, the meaning of which I had tried to explain to no avail was not a "hand-out" or welfare, but rather a medical benefit that I had elected to pay into through payroll deductions that had been accruing steadily and honestly over a period of seven years of full-time, active employment as a Flight Attendant for a major airline. Unfortunately, during that transitional period of going from full-time, active employee to permanently and totally disabled, my current status, I experienced constant disruptions and delays with my disability pay as a consequence of red tape or a million other factors, causing a financial burden on the Secondary Defendant that he could no longer bear, hence the ultimatum.

Third, and lastly, the Secondary Defendant had fallen on some hard times because he was in between jobs or just starting one, or perhaps nearing the fated termination of yet another, had been thousands of dollars arrears in child support, went bankrupt, lost both vehicles, had borrowed the Plaintiff's car for four months for transporting kids back and forth to and from their mother on weekends, as well as for looking for jobs and working, along with prior joint custody and visitation arrangements with the Primary Defendant, his ex-wife, and four children who stayed with him on the weekends, and what appeared to be no furniture except for a blow-up mattress and TV. In light of these glaring facts and others, the former live-in girl friend, that is, I, the Plaintiff, felt a sense of moral duty to allow the Secondary Defendant to borrow my personal property for as long as he and his children needed them, as I would be returning to live with my parents, who already have furniture. My only request to the Secondary Defendant was that in the event that he no longer needed to borrow my property and I could not immediately arrive to take them off of his hands, that he hold them in his safekeeping until my return for them and incur the cost if necessary for storage. The Secondary Defendant agreed to these terms. This agreement was later reaffirmed in writing.

 

As a consequence of a great many unknown variables at the time of my departure, n, this agreement called for no time limitations, deadlines, nor constraints (of course, within reason is always implicitly assumed and applied), nor designated period for required use or storage, as plans for the Secondary Defendant were up in the air, who had expressed many different confusing ideas of his future plans which seemed all inconclusive at the time of my departure and ever-changing, including an interest in buying my furniture outright from me in passing, which, of course, I wouldn't consider as the Secondary Defendant was in bankruptcy and would clearly be unable to afford them, even used, as they were very expensive, high end furniture pieces less than four years old whose initial price tag was a total of over $20,000. Amid so much uncertainty upon my departure, therefore, there was no way for me to know how my future financial and storage capability or status or condition would happen to be immediately upon his completion of use at some unknown future point in time; therefore, my arrival for them was not solely contingent upon simply the fact that he no longer needed to borrow them.

As it turned out, however, the period of the Secondary Defendant's use of my property and the period of my need of storage of my property following his use was for approximately the same length of time, six months--from October 2003 through April or May 2004, during which time they were in active use by the Secondary Defendant; and from May 2004 through October 2004, during which time they were placed in storage by the Secondary Defendant as part of our agreement. As the period of use and need of storage were approximately for the same duration of time, six months, I felt that the agreement was more than fair and not at all an unreasonable demand to ask of the Secondary Defendant, especially considering the cost and consequences of no agreement and having no furniture, for the one who is bankrupt as well as for the other one who was off to merry-making and romantic rendevous, after depositing various kids off to the ex and with various sleepovers, and then speeding off into the night to spend the weekend with her latest online fling, or whatever she did.

At the time, I had full confidence that the Secondary Defendant's unwavering and steadfast loyalty to obligations and duty could be counted on as a 'given,' if for nothing else no given is evident, based on my own observations in knowing him and seeing him interact with other people, so I naturally assumed that these positive traits possessed by the Secondary Defendant were permanent and abiding, and intrinsic to his nature. The Secondary Defendant, in fact, prided himself on his sense of duty and the sacrifices he makes on behalf of obligation and duty, especially with respect to his family, but also in his day-by-day interactions with those outside of his immediate family.

For instance, true to his words, in a manner of speaking, so to speak, around April or May of 2004, immediately following his completion of borrowing my property and successfully fulfilling and completing the terms of his apartment rental agreement and moving out, the conscientious and devoted father of four next proceeded to place my personal property in storage in his safekeeping until my return for them as he had promised, because he is a man of principle, in his ex-wife's garage, however; therefore, proving that principle, obligation and duty do not necessarily go hand-in-hand with intelligence and foresight. So, the Secondary Defendant gets an "E" for effort, but an "F" for the most ill-conceived, misbegotten furniture and property storage strategy ever conceived by a human, in his apparent failure to factor in three important variables that may come in the way of success in the particular storage plan and strategy that he was trying to implement.

One, his ex-wife, the Primary Defendant, is hostile and despises him, along with any thing or person associated with him, including possibly even all the borrowed personal property he is now holding in storage in her garage, and filling it up;

Two, the Primary Defendant, the ex-wife, has an axe to grind with the Secondary Defendant on numerous issues, I gathered, from the daily shouting matches over the telephone between the two of them, such as his temper and his inability to stay gainfully employed, or such as her temper and her inability to stay gainfully employed, causing either one of them to snap at any moment, and causing me to uncomfortably feel that this was a bad marriage that ended in divorce, but then continued on perpetually as a never-ending bad marriage after divorce; and

Three, among the variety of issues to axe and grind with the Secondary Defendant, perhaps the most vexing to the Primary Defendant is also an issue deserving a category altogether on its own, because the Secondary Defendant owes the Primary Defendant $20,000 in arrears in child support, and she is demanding her money, and perhaps becoming impatient and frustrated.

Such variables, not fully known to me at the time, when factored in with an ill-conceived and misbegotten storage plan, comprimises the Secondary Defendant's bargaining power and personal rights regarding possessions or anything, for that matter, whether borrowed or owned, and whether justified or not, for I am not fully convinced that we are dealing with a party who possesses a real sense of justice, but only a sense of justice in the crudest and most rudimentary form, such as the form practiced by ill-tempered children, or the ancient and biblical form of justice still favored in many developing countries in the Middle East, such as an eye for an eye, for example. Thus, the Secondary Defendan't idea, spawned by the marriage of stupidity and medieval justice, had an effect of creating an unforseen twist in the fabric of space-time, and not to mention my furniture, as well, and carefully and individually wrapped treasured items pre-boxed, tamper-resistant, and child-proofed by this Plaintiff, intended for an upcoming safe and uneventful five-hour voyage across state to the Florida line to their final destination, where they rightfully belong, but had somehow never made it, and are possibly gone forever.

These treasures included, among others, each item wrapped meticulously in layers of tape, plastic, and paper, to dissuade the curious hand of a child or the plundering eyes of an adult, precious framed photographs of my only child, a vast book collection (not individually wrapped), decorative furniture accessories and artwork, kimonos handsewn in threads of silk and gold, gongs, prayer beads, vases, and other sacred objects carried over as precious cargo during my family's migration to America from our native country nearly a lifetime ago, and handed down gingerly from generation to generation, to eventually my mother's generation and then finally to this current generation, to me--the current keeper of tradition and relics--but, as a consequence of a bad storage idea spawned by the marriage of stupidity and medieval justice, I am now the line-breaker and ender of all tradition and custom, which will now be forgotten and lost in the fog of time. Oh well.

These relics and heirloom objects and all other personal property had been wrapped and boxed for a final destination, the garage only being a brief stopping ground or through point, all of which had been entrusted to the Secondary Defendant temporarily, yet all of which were from then forward at the mercy and whim of a vengeful ex-boy friend's ex-wife who is completely ignorant of Japanese tradition and custom and, what is more, by then, had an axe to grind potentially with her former spouse, but could conceivably settle with axe to grind upon my innocent boxes in lieu of him, which, in and of themselves, are unrelated in any logical manner to the issues of child support money that someone owes her. But alas, logic and critical thinking are achievements far more advanced than the achievemements in thought made possible by medieval justice and eye for an eye, and is as yet a development not currently accessible to such a mind.  But even if it were accessible, this logic and critical thinking capacity in the pre-frontal cortex is perpetually short-circuted by a flood of rage gushing out of less developed portions of the brain, thereby activating an irrational and venomous need to inflict justice upon her wrongdoer at all cost, and smoting out eyes.

However, in the absence of this wrong evildoer nor his eyes to smote, these innocent boxes could conceivably do just fine for the Primary Defendant, who was, after all, nearly $20,000 arrears in child support by the Secondary Defendant, and furthermore, who had permitted the Secondary Defendant to take up free shelter and storage in her house to pay for his arrears and to offer her round-the-clock child care, as he could no longer afford to keep his apartment. And, as I would soon discover, whose innocent but careless dabbling and twisting of fate would ultimately lead to the culmination of events which found their tragic end in a total and catastrophic loss for this Plaintiff.

Thus, with ominous, menacing, heckling, and foreboding images of a vengeful ex-boy friend's ex-wife suddenly deciding to inflict justice on her wrong evildoer, and kicking out the Secondary Defendant on a bad day and tossing my property all over the street, which, of course, was not an altogether unreasonable and unwarranted fear, given their tumultuous relationship, explosive arguments and never-ending telephone shouting matches and hang-ups on each other over money and kids ad nauseum, which had been a daily ordeal for me to witness and to endure for as long as I had known the two of them.

However, the Secondary Defendant made a valiant effort, nevertheless, to counteract or offset these heckling, foreboding images that loomed on my immediate horizon with starkly contrasting alternative images of very wholesome forecasts of good tidings of sunny days along with bright hopes of tomorrow, like a springtime Downy commercial, but more cheesy, which, ironically, did not seem altogether unreasonable or unwarranted a forecast to entertain, considering the forceful and compelling way in which the Secondary Defendant had put it in his argument, who makes a good sales pitch and is generally not very easily deterred by nay sayers nor actual forecasts themselves. Except for the ones that sounded and seemed far too outrageous or too good to believe, which were within the Secondary Defendant's reach nonetheless, just as anything is possible with the right sales pitch, motivation, and the right presentation and wishful thinking, so that a living arrangement such as this would result in nothing but the best and brightest outcome and for all concerned, in every possible way.

The good and rosy forecast, the antithesis to my gloomy and heckling one, was argued by the Secondary Defendant in the following manner. By living with his ex-wife, he would be helping her with child care and child support and his ex-wife would be helping him free shelter and storage, and vice-versa. Better still, he continued, the children will have the advantage of having both parents in their lives--of course a clear advantage. And lastly--the straw that breaks the camel's back, perhaps and making his arguments ever so compelling and convincing--was the obvious advantage that I would continue to enjoy by having a safe, affordable, and convenient place for the Secondary Defendant to temporarily store my furniture until my return for them, he argued with conviction and gusto.

"In the end," announced the Secondary Defendant, as if he were a giddy goose who fell from the sky, "Everyone wins in the process!" reflecting his ever-abiding optimism and child-like exuberance. Infectious and endearing, at first--but over time, sickening and inauthentic to the core. Of course, this is not to suggest that the Secondary Defendant is dishonest, but rather to say that his words and promises are reminicient of the Pied Piper, whose high hopes and rosy forecasts are laden with irresponsible promises, and full of delusive enticements, so beware.

Moving on to yet another classic example of delusive enticements and irresponsible promises reminicient of Pied Piper, shortly after the Secondary Defendant's arrival at his former spouse's house in suburbia, who had granted him free shelter and storage in exchange for child care and child support money in return, the Secondary Defendant began calling me persistently with open invitations to vacation with him at his new phat crib in the burbs that he had initially lost to his wife in divorce, but that he had somehow miraculously managed to reclaim by default and by his mere presence and by her mere absence, saying that his ex-wife, the Primary Defendant, had virtually disappeared since his arrival, leaving him in total charge of the children and the household, and that she had allegedly told him, "Here, YOU take the house and the kids."

Seeming too incredible to be true, perhaps because it was, and strangely out of character for the ex-wife or, at least what I knew of her, which wasn't really much, the story nonetheless just didn't seem to add up, and would never compute no matter how many calls he made and how many times he repeated such nonsense and babble with his invitations to, as I would describe it, a suburban house family getaway (which to me was not a convincing enticement but rather sounded more like a horrible hell-hole of a destination spot on a remote desert with no water, and about as desirable to me as having to extract permanent adult teeth, or having a slow water torture, what with the seemingly hostile environment achieved in a dysfunctional family in which the parents are at each others' throats and in which the children, from the first day I had met them--the oldest one, at least, and the rest over time--had been unresponsive, indifferent, and stubbornly resistant to my futile efforts at gaining friendship and trust that I had hoped might flower someday with them, with patience and diligence).  Thus, having never experienced rejection and ambivalence from children before in my life, who are generally by nature on the contrary attracted to me, even the shy ones, and want to befriend me, perhaps because of my relative size and because I appear non-threatening to them, these children were therefore an anomaly to me, and continue to be.

Thus, the bad vibes I had been detecting from these children, and these children alone, apart from any other children I have ever known, left me with nagging suspicions of a mother who is behind the scenes in the background scorning me for getting a bikini wax (which she did, incidentally), or some other trifling thing, as I was the 'other woman,' after all, to be held in utter contempt and scorn in front of impressionable and innocent children, without her ever so much as trying to get to know me, and possibly encouraging scornful, tattle-tale behavior with her offspring, but I will end the speculations here.

However, to put a long story short, one day in early May, I was driving down a country road while fumbling through CDs and a cell phone, and smoking a cigarette, too--I obviously had far too many simultaneous motor activities going on that I could handle while driving, especially for a person such as myself, who has Sensory Integration Dysfunction, and I lost control of my car and wound up in a cotton field, sideways, after flipping over a couple of times, and totaling my car, a Toyota Avalon XLS, one of my last remaining vestiges of a once-had prosperity lost to disability, along with my job, my credit card, my credit, my checking account, and the ability to open up a checking account virtually nowhere in the United States, because I have been blacklisted for five years by ChexSystems for writing bad checks because I am disabled and poor and unable to keep a high balance on my checking account. But--at least I still had furniture, I thought, thank heavens, if nothing else, to distinguish me from the average homeless bag lady who walks around with her possessions in a stolen shopping cart, and sleeps at night with newspapers over her head to protect her from the elements.

My mother was telling me about her tentative plans to 'ground' me, a 37 year old, to my room, while she and my dad were driving me home from the hospital, and after I had checked out OK according to the CAT scan and testing negative for drugs or alchohol, for wrecking my car, by forcing me to wait until she was good and well ready before she would buy me another car again, perhaps even weeks, to teach me a lesson for my impudence of staying out all night and wrecking my car. Thus, the combination of such tragic turn of events, no car, being condemned to live the rest of my life with the elderly, and being grounded at age 37 to my room for weeks for my impudence, all in the same day, were more than I could emotionally bear, and then suddenly the idea of a suburban house family getaway vacation didn't seem so bad an idea after all, I came to think and reconsider.  Thus, no sooner than being out of their car and into my room, I decided to call the Secondary Defendant to tell him "yes" to his offer of an all-expense paid vacation to suburbia, and he arranged right away to pick me up, I think the next day he arrived. I thought that a change of scenery might do me some good. It was time for me to do a routine check up on my stuff, anyway.

No sooner than I had arrived to the getaway house in suburbia for my well-deserved change of pace and scenery, the Secondary Defendant began pleading with me nonstop to stay permanently, as a permanent resident of this suburban home in suburbia, explaining that the Primary Defendant was rarely home these days, that she had gone off to marry a rich man from Match.com in Las Vegas, in fact, and as far as he was concerned, she wasn't coming back, who told him, "Here, YOU take the house and the kids."

At first I resisted, trusting my intuition and better judgment, telling him that all I wanted to do for the time being was to visit, and not stay on as a permanent resident. However, after more convincing and after becoming more thoroughly sold and enamoured on more fabulous sales pitches--so outrageous that no sane person could possibly buy into them, with perhaps the exception of this sucker, who decided that trusting the Secondary Defendant was worth a shot, after all, because he is obviously sane and not one to be in the habit of making outrageous and bold claims that he couldn't back up, such as the ones he currently proclaims as truth, so they must therefore be true, or he's insane otherwise. In any event, I felt that the Secondary Defendant, more than anyone, besides his ex-wife, would know her true intentions and cares, which by his descriptions of her did not include this house anymore, and whether or not he had the authority to make such decisions that he, the Secondary Defendant and ex-husband and house mate, of all people, should know, as I am merely an outsider and will take things told to me by adults who appear to be sane at face value, especially with respect to their own possessions and home, unless there is reason for me to believe otherwise.

I therefore made a decision to trust that the Secondary Defendant knew what he was talking about, giving him the benefit of the doubt, telling him that if his ex-wife was truly gone as he claimed, and if she truly doesn't care or mind if I move in, and if his children truly didn't mind my staying here and welcomed my stay, then I would stay. BUT--in order to convince me to stay on a possible permanent basis, I advised the Secondary Defendant, the exterior of the house is OK, but he will have to make some major changes to my immediate surroundings, that is, the interior of this house, which was badly in need of repair and a touch-up from years of neglect, with no downstairs plumbing, at least in the kitchen. Thus, the Infamous Project of Good Intentions but Disasterous Results was born, and sprang into action immediately.

We decided first on a color palette to warm up the kitchen and the living room, and to make them more punchy and alive with bold color, as well as more contemporary, because the walls in their current condition were dirty and fingerprinted at various heights throughout the house from approximately four feet to the floor, as one would predictably see in a house of four growing children in which there had never been any painting touch-ups done whatsoever, and just plain white walls otherwise, other than the fingerprints themselves. We decided that the traditional country themes such as doilies and geese, with perhaps a bible verse plaque of thanks hung over a stove, perhaps not one as just described or even a verse, but very similar, and other traditional country designs throughout the house, and afghans and quilts, were frankly an eyesore and unoriginal and uninspiring, and unfortunately had to go. We replaced the fake wood TV stand or entertainment center with my three-piece, solid oak, contemporary design from the garage. We dragged away the fake wood traditional coffee table and moved in my round formica coffee table. I dotted the living room with various decorative furniture accessories and artwork. I felt the change was instantly stunning and remarkable, but I began having doubts about the color palette, as usual, thinking perhaps to change the color.

After gazing at the partially completed project with a certain sense of satisfaction (once the color correction was added in, trying to imagine it, which we unfortunately did not get to do because of a certain interruption to unfold momentarily) and calling it a day, I discovered that one of the children had a karaoke machine and was absolutely thrilled and eager to try it out, and we decided to sing karaoke, since I had always been too shy to sing karaoke at a bar except when I was in Japan, which was later, so at the time, it was my first time trying karaoke out. We had a blast. It was actually the highlight of my stay, the karaoke session. During this singing session, the oldest child, Ansley, then fifteen, appeared with two teenaged friends. I believe that it was my first time seeing Ansley during my entire two-week stay there, if I am not mistaken. She had actually gotten in trouble by her dad the night before, or some time that week, because she was in the habit of spending several nights in a row with various friends without consulting her dad first and without returning his calls on her cell phone.  One night, in fact, he had even called police to report her as a missing person, and so I believe there was some tension and strain involved with their current father-daughter relationship, the favorite child of her mother, causing her to remain scarce nearly the entire two weeks that I was there, and perhaps inducing false memories in her, as well.

I noticed that while singing and enjoying myself on NO drugs and NOT high (I took absolutely no recreational drugs during my entire stay at the suburban family getaway, let's get that straight for starters; and perhaps started on a bottle of white wine that I never finished and had left in the Primary Defendant's refrigerator, but never recall becoming intoxicated over the wine that I drank, perhaps one or two glasses, at most, not enough for even myself to become intoxicated from); and thus, as there were no drugs to my knowledge and there was no way to get high, with the exception of the natural high induced by singing Danncing Queen on a karaoke session, after a long, grueling and exhaustive day of painting and moving furniture around, I began to notice that Ansley and her friends were whispering to each other while watching me sing. Whether they were whispering about my singing or about the transformations underway in the kitchen and living room, which, to be sure, were all dramatic, let alone the song I was singing, I wasn't clear.

Later, however, the Secondary Defendant, Ansley's father, received a very alarming call from the Primary Defendant, Ansley's mother, from Las Vegas, who was apparently very distressed over a call she had received from her daughter, Ansley, who reported to her mother that her father had brought me there and that we got high, and during the frolic and the frenzy of our intoxication, painted the walls five different colors, frightening the children and behaving erratically, until our highs wore down--the final story that was embellished by the mother after the initial story given by her daughter, or perhaps embellished with the passage of time by the teenager in later recollections, who I think simply told her mother that we got high and painted the walls five different colors, which in and of itself is already is patently ridiculous without embellishment, yet even more patently ridiculous once the other embellishments were added in the Primary Defendant's certified letter to me later and in her countersuit, to create this final product and full-blown fairy tale story, derived from this colorful, silly allegation that she is now in an uncomfortable position to prove, and I am curious to see where she will go with all this.

But, returning to this alarming wake-up call from Las Vegas, the Primary Defendant began to scream bloody murder and make other accusations to the Secondary Defendant on the phone, and ordered him to "get everything back to square one before she gets home, if he knows what's good for him," or something to that effect, and that was my first and only indication that the Primary Defendant was ever coming back home, since I had already agreed to come and live over there, too, in that suburban house in suburbia, silly me. Of course, the ex-wife coming back to live in the same house in suburbia with us was NOT a part of this deal.

And so about four days later, I believe, and still a long way before the completion of our project, yet still making progess, if slowly but surely, in spite of the fact that I would no longer be sticking around after this project, after news of the ex's return, and trying to get it done as quickly as possible so that I could be out of that horrible hell-hole with no water nor downstairs plumbing, the Primary Defendant appears in the living room and immediately begins screaming bloody murder again and arguing hysterically with the Secondary Defendant over the "mess" we had made nonstop of her kitchen and living room, and going on and on, which did not appear to be a mess as she alleged to be from my vantage point, but merely an enormous project that was yet to be completed, if given a chance, which may have involved the taking off of kitchen cabinets so as to avoid sloppy workmanship, as she alleges, which of course we were fully intending to put back on were it not for her hysterical outbreak.

Having never expected any of these strange happenings to come to pass, along with a sudden, hollow recognition that perhaps I had worn out my welcome or had never been welcomed to begin with, and no longer wishing to be in the crossfire of whatever this current 'thing' was--a family feud? a lover's quarrel?--and particularly furious at the Secondary Defendant for leading me to think that everything we were doing was hunky-dory and OK by her, the ex-wife, who was no longer a part of the decision-making process and who wasn't supposed to come back but did, her reappearance still a mystery to me but of no concern of mine as I have moved on, but couln't help but wonder at the time, did her groom suddenly develop cold feet? Anyhow, it was all too strange and too very tense for me after the ex-wife's hysterical return, and I resigned from the project and washed my hands of it immediately and completely right then and there, and not a moment too soon.  I demanded the Secondary Defendant to take me back home to my parents immediately.  And to think that at one point, I was going to stay?

Thus, the Infamous Project of Good Intentions but Disasterous Results concluded, as predicted, with good intentions but interrupted by hysteria and then ended abruptly and very disasterously incomplete, with kitchen cabinet left off to make hasty exit away from this madness, and never put back on, all thanks to a delusional enticement made by the Secondary Defendant, who is now alleged along with me to throw a painting party of sorts, including the passing out of people in states of drug-induced comas with paint brushes still in our hands, after frightening children and destroying everything, from what I gather from the Primary Defendant's assertions in her certified letter, only to be caught red-handed by the Primary Defendant while we were in the act, after frightening children, behaving erratically, and then passing out from one of our drunken stupors until our 'highs' wore off in the living room, where she walked in and found us, thus making us guilty.

My last time seeing the Secondary Defendant was around July 12, when he drove down to visit me at my parents' house. During that visit I gave him a grand tour of the empty house in the back that I had been painting and remodeling for the arrival of my furniture, even showing him detailed, painstaking drawings of the exact replica of the furniture in his safekeeping as they would appear upon completion, once they were finally brought down and moved in. Soon afterwards I began dating someone else and never looked back, except to check on my things, seeing little point in maintaining a relationship with someone so steeped in so many family and financial problems, and possibly even a person who doesn't play with a full deck of cards, judging by my recent experiences with this person and his recent grandiose claims, that were later proven to be bogus and dead wrong.

I therefore moved on with my life, and went back to preparing the empty house in the back yard of my parents' house as before. An unforseen situation occurred, however, when my mother decided that she was not happy with my work and the progress of my work, because I kept changing my mind about the color and kept changing them and painting and re-painting walls, to the point of being banned from exchanging paints from Home Depots anymore, because sometimes I would arrive with the wrong color after opening the can and using about a quarter of the paint, and deciding it was 'oops' paint after painting a wall, and exchanged it for another color perhaps one too many times, leading the management to decide not to sell paint to me anymore.

And so my mother decided to take over my project and turned the house into a Buddhist meeting house, leaving me at the last week of July 2004 to scramble around in haste and search for a new place for my furniture, using the disability money I had been saving for a U-haul rental and to hire movers for my furniture to instead finding a new place to live and to move my furniture into, thus delaying my anticipated time of arrival for my property. However, as it was only at the time about four months into the storage period and the fact that the Secondary Defendant had been informed from the beginning that my time of need for storage was not contingent upon simply the fact that he no longer needed to use them, but also on other factors, within reason, of course.  So, in spite of the delay and setback, I still believed that our agreement was more than fair and undeniably within reason, considering what the cost and consequences of no agreement would be for the Secondary Defendant who was in need of furniture but couldn't afford it, and with four children on the weekends at his one-bedroom apartment, whose visitations could continue on as usual without disruption for his remaining six or seven months at his apartment after I moved out, not to mention also an ex-wife who could carry on with very full weekends of social activity and online dating as she had grown accustomed to during the same period, all without disruption.

However, my later attempts to contact the Secondary Defendant on September 17 and again on October 4 to touch base with him were unsuccessful, and he did not return my calls. I left him a detailed message each time, and on October 4, while awating boarding my flight to the Narita International Airport, to remind him of my upcoming visit to Japan with my mother, which had been years in the making and of which he had been informed about long before. I was hoping that he could bear with me for just a bit longer until the end of October after coming back, and to tell him the good news that I would be coming into some spending money from my mother--$2,000, intended for the Japan trip from my mother, but that I decided to save instead for an apartment and for moving expenses for bringing down my furniture.

Immediately upon my return from Japan--October 26, I had managed to vacation very frugally and had saved $1500 of the $2000. I immediately found an unfurnished mobile home immediately and moved into it, and immediately called the Secondary Defendant to let him know that I was ready to take my furniture and other property back. It was my third attempt in calling him by that point and I was beginning to grow concerned, but had assumed up to then that no news was good news. But when he finally picked up his phone to say 'hello' in the last week of October, and I told him that I wanted my furniture back, he said that the ex-wife kicked him out of her house in suburbia without notice at or around August 1, and wouldn't let him return for his clothes, let alone my things, without a court order, which he could not afford to get anymore, after becoming homeless and losing his job.  He told me that his ex-wife had even put a "For Sale" sign on my personal property some time ago in her garage. He suggested that I "take it up with her," as he did not see how he "fit in to this picture anymore," and gave me her telephone number so that I could settle directly with her myself.

I immediately called the Primary Defendant to try to politefully arrange for a mutually convenient time for me to pick up my furniture and other items, or what remained of them. She replied nonchalantly that they were "gone" and "given away," as if not a big deal or concern to her. When I asked her about the entertainment center, coffee table, and other items in her living room, she replied nonchalantly that they were "still there," but that she would not be letting me into her house to get them back. I replied to her that these items were far too expensive and valuable for me to simply let her keep. She then became very hostile and irrational, saying that I "spend all my money on drugs," and before hanging up the phone into my ear, told me to "take it up with him."

And so I tried, once again, to "take it up with him," who had already told me to "take it up with her," with neither party wishing to offer me assistance in helping me get my furniture and other property back, and both person blaming the other. The Secondary Defendant advised me to "get over it, it's just stuff, and why get worked up over stuff?" but it was difficult to accept such a consolation booby prize from a booby prize winner himself, what with my current situation of no furniture, except a broken mattress with collapsed springs on the floor to use as a bed, a computer on the floor, a telephone, and all hangable clothing on hangers due to lack of drawers to put them in, and the rest of the non-hangable stuff, such as panties and socks and the like, in various makeshift cardboard boxes across the floor, and exposed to the elements. Not that it really matters, I have rather grown accustomed to living like a gypsy with no possessions. But I have decided to graciously turn down the consolation booby prize that was offered, that of getting over it and moving on without stuff, and become a booby prize winner like the Loser himself, who found a new girl friend and then disappeared without a forwarding address, and stopped taking any more calls from me.

When I consulted an attorney to see what I could do about it, he informed me that without a current physical address to subpoena the Secondary Defendant, the Primary Witness to a verbal agreement, and with no receipts or any documents to speak of to show ownership, and no written contract, which I naturally tend to never insist upon due to my disorganization and hatred of paperwork and forms that I never read nor complete nor keep track of, because they are boring, my chances of doing anything legally about my problem or getting compensation was virtually zero.

Refusing to give up, however, as a consequence of a certain stubborness to hear the word, "no" when I think they are wrong, I remembered that the Secondary Defendant did manage to tell me in passing about a new website that he was promoting as e-commerce, legwerks.biz, prior to stopping taking my calls and disappearing without a forwarding address.  However, he did not respond to the contact email address posted on his site, nor the cell phone number that was posted on it, either, because he never answers it; nor at that time, neither.  But I did learn by visiting this site that he is currently the President and Founder of this particular company; therefore, his executive secretary or one of his staff members over there perhaps was not on the ball and never gave him my message, because no one replied back to my email nor returned the call that I made in response to my inquries.

However, still stubborn as I am to hear the word, "no," I did a simple WHOIS search on the Internet and immediately found the name and current physical address of the administrator of the domain, and sent the administrator of the domain a certified letter on February 1 informing him that I have decided to give him an opportunity to be granted immunity from criminal prosecution for felony theft by conversion and receipt, which, in the state of Georgia, involves personal property theft of property having a monetary value of over $500 that is stolen or converted, the conviction of which results in imprisonment from one to ten years in a penitentiary for a felony crime.

However, I continued, there is still hope for the administrator if he follows my instructions very carefully and completely by filling out all the forms that I have enclosed concerning our verbal agreement, that will need his signature and date, as well as various sworn personal statements as to what happened, because no one still bothered to tell me.  In return, I will waive him as well as his accomplice ex-wife from criminal prosecution, and ended by stating that the fate of his loved ones and his fate I leave in his hands, and will give him ten days from the date of this letter to return all forms for immunity from criminal prosecution to take affect for himself and for the mother of his four children. The forms were duly and promptly completed and returned by the Secondary Defendant, who requested a three day extension on his deadline, which was granted.  Thus, I have decided to drop the personal prosecution warrants for their criminal arrest.  However, as I now have the administrator's current physical address,  it appears that I can now sue him for breach of contract, should the Secondary Defendant try to take back his words, now recorded on paper and returned to me as per my request to take advantage of criminal immunity. Yet the possibility of civil suit in Small Claims Court to answer to his crime is no doubt a far better a fate to suffer than a prison term to answer to his crime.

On the same date, February 1, I wrote a similar demand letter to the Primary Defendant, giving her a ten day notice from the date of this letter to respond with her intent to my notification that I would be arriving with law enforcement and professional movers on April 17, 2005, at 5 P.M, to collect the remainder of my personal property and to present her with a bill for any property not accounted for. She returned the notice by telephone two days later, on Febrary 3, to inform me that she would be moving on February 19 and would be leaving the remainder of my property for disposal on the curbside on that date. When I asked if this would be her final decision on the matter, she affirmed that it would be.

To follow up in response to her final decision on the matter, I sent another certified letter to the Primary Defendant informing her that on February 19, 2005, at 10 AM, I will be at her CURBSIDE to collect the remainder of my personal property, but that she still had until the remainder of the ten day period to make her final decision should she need to change the current one. She called back on February 5, and spoke with my fiance, and informed him that she would be throwing all of my property away that evening, February 5, on her curbside, for trash collectors to pick up on the following Monday, and that she is countersuing me for abandonment and damages.

I followed up again to respond to her most recent final decision of throwing my property away that evening, so that I could go ahead and file civil suit for monetary compensation, notifying her twice, on February 5 and February 7. She called me back on February 10 and informed me that she would not be releasing any of my personal property back to me unless I agreed to sign some forms that she would be sending me regarding damages and storage fees and the like via certified mail. I told her that I would be happy to look over them, but that I will still need to pick up my remaining personal property nonetheless, form or no form.

The next day, around 2PM, with growing concerns that the Primary Defendant's indecision is merely a delay tactic to buy time so that she, too, can disappear without a forwarding address, as her former spouse had attempted to do but failed, I called her on February 11 and left message on her phone that I needed immediate resolution by phone, as I had no more time to waste waiting on pieces of paper to arrive in the mail. Furthermore, I needed her consent to allow me to pick up my stuff without the forms on her move out date on February 19th, as I would not be making a five-hour trek across state only to find that she changed her mind yet again, and needed her to call me back on this. She did not return my call, and I waited until the last hour of her ten day deadline to resolve the issue.  In the absence of her returned call, I went ahead and filed electronically with the Magistrate Court. She was served with a Notice of Summons two days before her move-out date, thinking, perhaps, that she could move out to an unknown address and leave her legal problems behind her. Of course, she was wrong.

I did finally receive the promised certified letter from the Primary Defendant on February 14, with the forms to complete and return to the Primary Defendant promising her a $11,700 payment for the release of my furniture and other property to pay for storage fees, repairs to damage, and rubbish removal of 'infested' items, to be paid in full within 30 days to avoid facing legal action by the Primary Defendant, she warned me sternly. Included also in this certified mail were "Addendums," copies of a Phalaris extraction recipe and a note to a neighbor asking to bum a joint that I had never delivered, which had apparently been found and seized by the Primary Defendant at the time of her witch hunt, while rummaging and pillaging frantically through boxed sacred items that might bolster her fairy tale case, in search of that elusive "evidence" or smoking gun to "prove" that I was "high" or engaged in any criminal activity whatsoever during my visit to the house in suburbia in May 2004, in spite of the fact that these items had been boxed away by the Plaintiff many months prior to her ill-fated trip to the burbs back in May, thus proving nothing with respect to the Primary Defendant's current allegations. However, in the absence of any real evidence or facts, it will be very difficult to legitimize the imaginary stories recounted and later retold by children or teens who are highly suggestible and brainwashed by their thought-police mother, by attacking the Plaintiff's character, to make it seem as though a certain alleged crime was committed on the basis of the accused person's integrity and her quality of character and likelihood of committing.

Yet, if truth be told, the only thing that a stunned person might come away with after witnessing this particular rampage and witch hunt, is a certain shallowness of character that is perfectly embodied within the Primary Defendant, herself, and thus speaks volumes for her own integrity and character, rather than on any other person she hopes to target.  And, speaking of which, by the way, in case she doesn't know, in the event that she is not very well-read or acquainted with the subject of ethnobotany, the Phalaris plant is used to make the ayahuasca brew, a strong hallucinogen, among the indigenous peoples of the Amazons, but is not to my knowledge a scheduled substance in the United States. I was going to call her and thank her for sending the recipe, I'd been looking all over for it, but said never mind.

In all, I found the notes, forms, and addendums to be very amusing, but not very helpful in helping me to resolve my current issue with her, and so I ignored them. She did call back on February 19th around noon to inform me that I had two hours to get my stuff without the forms. I replied that I hoped that she likes my entertainment center and other items, because as far as I was concerned, she has already bought them, since she does not appear to be able offer any reasonable type of notice, but only threats and promises of revenge. And really, did she think I could snap my fingers and hire movers, rent a truck, and be there in two hours when driving time alone is nearly five?

The Plaintiff has a right to claim and protect her personal property. The Plaintiff believes that the children's mother should give back what the children's mother didn't sell, who sold most of it, and then kept some others. If the mother will not give the remainder of the personal property back to the Plaintiff, the Plaintiff expects the children's mother to pay the Plaintiff $4,000 for them, their estimated value that she refuses to return. The Plaintiff has been patient and has tried to negotiate reasonably with the children's mother to no end, who is clearly not a person of reason. Time's up.

For the dad, the Plaintiff believes that she is owed compensation for the fact that they have a verbal contract that was later put in writing, and is binding. He is legally responsible for the entire amount, $8,000, but to give the children's father the benefit of the doubt that he tried everything he that could, as the father maintains, the Plaintiff is willing to drag the children's mother to court and is willing to let the mother pick up the $4,000 slack for the amount still in the children's mother's possession or all of it, including the items sold by the mother, if the judge determines so. The children's mother still has the option of giving the withheld property back to the Plaintiff if the mother cannot pay.

If the children's mother decides to give them back, the Plaintiff would like a court order or a writ of possession to legally claim them, so that the Plaintiff will not have problems anymore upon claiming them, for the fact that the children's mother is inclined to change her mind so many times due to the mother's instabilities, and because the Plaintiff feels that the children's mother's most recent demand of ransom money of $11,700 for them to be taken out of hostage and captivity to return the property to the Plaintiff is unreasonable and ludicrous, and is based on false allegations based on fairy tales, which the mother is now in an uncomfortable position to now prove, under oath before a judge and in a court of law, and the Plaintiff wishes her the best.

Additionally, the Primary Defendant clearly knew on two separate occasions, at least--the first time, by her own admission in writing from her certified letter, that the property in question clearly belongs to none other than myself, the Plaintiff, and she was fully aware of this fact.  In addition, the Primary Defendant had been warned yet again by the Secondary Defendant two days prior to her garage sale that the property in question is the property of the Plaintiff, and had been strongly advised by the Secondary Defendant not to sell my property, lest she be sued by me.

Yet, in spite of knowing these facts or being informed of them on two separate prior occasions, the Primary Defendant claimed to later not know that the property in question belongs to the Plaintiff, because the Primary Defendant at some point later suddenly began to mysteriously believe the words of her twelve or thirteen year old daughter over the words of the actual adults themselves, because the child had apparently misheard me say that "I gave everything to her Dad," which is nonsense, and the Primary Defendant knows this full well, and is therefore apparently caught in a lie, or has serious memory problems.

Furthermore, the Primary Defendant claims that I abandoned my property because I failed to get in touch with her to let her know what my intentions were of my property for months, when, in fact, the Plaintiff had been trying to contact the appriopriate party, the Secondary Defendant, the designated and legal borrower of my property who was in charge of my storage by contract, for months, with no success, until it was too late, in the last week of October 2004, when I first became aware of needing to intervene and speak directly with the Primary Defendant concerning my property.  Prior to this time, the Plaintiff had no relations with the children's mother whatsoever, nor does now except for this litigation dispute. The children's mother was not a part of the contract and, as far as the Plaintiff is concerned, is an unauthorized third party who made a hostile takeover of property not belonging to her, without going through the proper legal channels.

The property left for the father to borrow was for the children's and the children's father's benefit. Because of the conditions at the time with the father, the Plaintiff felt that she could give them a hand because they obviously would need furniture on the weekends, and for perhaps at least several months, to continue being provided with an adequate, comfortable place of respite and play without disruption, the consequences of which would affect the mother, because she would have to keep the kids on weekends and not be able to go to pursue full weekends of social activity and online dating, which she was in the habit of doing. It therefore seems to involve the mother indirectly to cooperate for her benefit. Thus, it was a kind gesture, but it became a thankless gesture that was never acknowledged, as is customary of the children's mother to never thank or acknowledge. The Plaintiff furthermore concludes that a kind gesture by the children's mother of giving the Plaintiff the opportunity of picking up property from the children's mother's garage before selling them did not occur to children's mother, making the Plaintiff wonder whether the Primary Defendant had ever considered what the consequences would be to her children were they to be deprived of furniture for six months during their weekend visitations with their father, and apparently is not much concerned with possibilities of Division of Family and Children Services (DFACS) workers knocking on her door some day were that to happen.

It's unfortunate that the storage of furniture has inconvenienced the children's mother, who by default had been charged with this task. The mother had, however, initially consented to it to the father and later withdrew it, and then sold them off and kept them. Of course the mother has a right to clear her garage if that is her desire, but the Plaintiff was never made aware of that wish in the slightest. The father never told the Plaintiff anything. The Plaintiff would have been more than happy to comply with the thankless mother's wishes, and very promptly, in spite of the Plaintiff's financial difficulty at the time, because the Plaintiff believes that her family will come through for her and help her take them off the thankless mother's hands, should the need arise to take them out of danger and harm's way, because of the property's importance to the Plaintiff.

The Plaintiff was left with no way to act or intervene. And now the mother is keeping some of it, and won't give it back. And the Plaintiff now is stuck in a trailer that is virtually empty because of that, and is too poor to buy more furniture, and pictures of my little boy can never be replaced, not ever, which hurts this Plaintiff very much, nor books collected over twenty years, since I was a teenager, which perhaps had no value to the average dimwit of a bargain hunter in a garage sale nor to the mean people who held the sale, nor any value as incriminating evidence, nor functional value, thus no intrinsic value to them, and were therefore condemned as maggot infested rubbish to be removed that she sticks me with a bill for later. Of course, as these maggot-infested items have all been conveniently discarded and removed by the Primary Defendant from our inspection, we are none the wiser to know if they really were infested, as she alleges them to be.  Yet it is, nonetheless, a conveniently clever and fool-proof way to downgrade any object of value to rotten garbage of zero worth, just to be sure, so that the Primary Defendant won't feel so guilty about her inhumane, monstrous, and heartless treatment of these objects.

But I do have a xeroxed copy of a Phalaris extraction recipe and a note to a neighbor to bum a joint, of all the priceless things sold off, discarded as maggot-infested rubbish, or kept. Perhaps I should go thank the thankless mother for throwing all else away, including framed pictures of my son, and keeping those potentially incriminating notes and making copies of them, because she was kind enough to xerox me copies, after all, and now I have them. So at least I have something to show for all my salvaged and lost possessions, two little pieces of xeroxed paper of worthless junk.  Which, I might add, serve no value or purpose to the Primary Defendant, herself, neither, as she will soon discover to her embarrassment and dismay, because they are logically unrelated to the current price of tea in China nor to her current allegations.  Perhaps she can cast a magical spell over these pieces of paper, so that they will have magical properties to do what she wants them to do.

If the mother has other items in her possession that she hasn't told me about, I demand that she tell me and allow me to pick them up. If she doesn't give any of it back, either she or the father will have to pay the Plaintiff $4,000 for the items still in the mother's possesion that she has confirmed are still in her possession. As to the remaining $4,000 of lost or stolen furniture that is unrecoverable from a forced garage sale because the mother didn't let the father come back to get them, either one or both must pay it back. Either way, the Plaintiff is entitled to full compensation of the entire amount of the property, $8,000, and will accept it in the form of money or property; where or from whom the money comes from makes no difference to the Plaintiff, as long as it's fair. However, since the thankless gesture was never returned by perhaps helping the Plaintiff in her time of need of storage when the mother could have, or by the thankless gesture of the six months the mother's children had to use them, or even indirectly for the six months the father had to use them, whom the Plaintiff had been told has difficulties with child support, which the Plaintiff's taking all furniture under the circumstances at the time might present, perhaps the mother can find it in her heart to give the Plaintiff the furniture and other items back, so the father won't have to pay for them, or so that the mother won't have to pay for them.

If the court does not allow property settlement, but only monetary settlement, the Plaintiff is willing to settle for monetary settlement from the mother who is refusing to return the Plaintiff's furniture. Whatever the case, the Plaintiff will only at this point agree to immediate resolution, whether through property or monetary settlement, for she is weary of the ongoing problems posed of living a life without furniture, and has no more money left to wage more court battles or pay more fees, nor gas money to keep driving five hours across state back and forth if she can help it, and she has spent several months in research to find the right course of action to take to resolve her issues, after having consulted with many free telephone consultations with attorneys, court clerks, legal aids, and law enforcement, who have all advised this Plaintiff to follow this current course of action.

If the father has a grievance or gripe with the mother for forcing him into a breach of contract by kicking him out without notice and not allowing him to return for the Plaintiff's property, as the father alleges, and then held a two-day garage sale in spite of his warnings, as he alleges, the Plaintiff has done all the legwork by dragging in the mother and paying court costs so that the father can now sue the mother for her actions for the money that he will lose from the Plaintiff. If the mother now has a grievance or gripe with the father for holding a painting party and inviting girls and getting high and painting the walls five different colors, behaving erratically until their highs wore down, as the mother alleges, the Plaintiff has done all the legwork of tracking down the father, her invited house mate who threw the alleged party, out from his hiding as a faceless anonymous entity somewhere out there in cyberspace, dragging him into court so that he can answer to her allegations.

If the father has further gripes that the mother had initially consented to his painting the interior of the house, was never home anymore but was pursuing a very active social life with various men online, had left the kids with him and virtually disappeared ever since he moved in, had gone off to marry a rich guy from Match.com in Las Vegas while the painting project was underway, and whom he didn't think was ever coming back, thereby giving him authority to paint her house, had furthermore even invited the Plaintiff to move into this house in her absence because he thought that Primary Defendant was never coming back, as far as he was concerned, and who furthermore is alleged to have stated to the children's father, "Here. YOU take the kids and the house," the Plaintiff has done all the legwork by finding the mother two days before her disappearance without a forwarding address and has served her with a Notice of Summons, thereby dragging her into court so that the children's mother can answer to his allegations.

And finally, if the children's mother insists on putting her children on a witness stand against their own father, children who have grown up in a confirmed history of dysfunction produced by marital strife and high conflict all of these childrens' lives, who have witnessed both parents calling the police on each other while fighting, who have been forced and force fed to swallow their mother's own bitterness in the most shameful and deplorable manner, whose father has been forbidden to even see his own children since last August, so I hear, until a future court date, so that the process of psychological exploitation by a spiteful and manipulative mother is perhaps by now virtually complete and irreversible--even with the youngest ones, who by now are perhaps carbon copies of their mom and can probably parrot her every word and intention as the older ones can skillfully do, to the point of making false allegations and memories--if indeed this is the Primary Defendant's wish to put her children on a witness stand over personal property issues in a Small Claims Court, of all things, irrespective of the potential trauma that could result from such litigation tactics and the use of children, she is more than free to do so, of course, as I am happy to answer and cross examine to question any allegations made by any person who dares, whether adult or child, as there is nothing for me to hide.

However, the Plaintiff may suggest psychological testing on these children and their mother if possible to determine the extent of damage that has been inflicted on these children's credibility on a witness stand, in light of the silly allegations that the Primary Defendant is currently making in her countersuit, all based on children's fairy tales, and in light of other reasons aforementioned above. Whatever the circumstance, both defendants have been given an opportunity to settle with Judge Alex and now Judge Hatchett so that all of the judgment amount could be paid to me by the producers of these shows and not out of their pockets, which I would have gladly accepted, but cannot, because neither defending party was willing to settle on these shows. So be it. Perhaps I can negotiate with the shows to see if they can pay both the loser and winner a $5,000 appearance fee, and then they will agree. However, if this is the route they wish to go, in the Cherokee County Magistrate Court, then more power to them. I wish them the best of luck.

The following is an optional read to be submitted in conjunction to the above Amendment to my Statement of Claim, as a story of "What if?"

What If, Thankless Mother?

a fictional but highly likely alternative scenario

by

Barbi Hammond, Plaintiff

Let's take an imaginary journey to an alternate, parallel universe, in which everything is the same except for one difference, that being, the kind gesture of leaving furniture temporarily behind to a family in need that became a thankless, unacknowledged gesture as a consequence of a vengeful ex-wife and mother of four who took over them and sold them and kept them, did not occur. In this alternate, parallel universe, as it seems, a former girl friend has taken everything in October 2003 and has left the father of four children with his own possessions, which looked at the time to be a blow-up mattress and TV. The thankless gesture frankly never crossed her mind, so self-absorbed and preoccupied to move on with other things as she was, and had ADHD also in the other universe, so it seems.

Precipitating the break-up and move in this alternate parallel universe was that the father had accused the then live-in girl friend that she was only book smart but had no common sense, while driving his then girl friend and his four children in the back seat in a car on an interstate from point A to point B, north to south, in the same state, a straight shot, but had somehow made a wrong turn and found themselves at point M, due west, and in another state. After discovering his error, and increasing the driving time by two to three hours to the chagrin of the four children in the back as a consequence, they decided to sing to pass the time. After running out of songs, they played Twenty Questions and then made another wrong turn into a debate about the concept of self-organization, that is, a unit of self-containment that is capable of maintaining a degree of self-organization without becoming obliterated by the external environment, such as a cell, and about the concept of complexity, that is, the fact that an infinite level of self-organizational levels exist in the universe from simple to complex, all the way up and down.

To disprove these widely-accepted scientific facts, the father used a metaphor of biscuit dough to prove that he could break it apart with his hands until they are crumbs, and hence the biscuit dough as a self-contained unit is now obliterated and no longer a unit that is self-contained, hence no such thing as self-organization.

But even then, the then live-in girl friend responded, breaking the dough apart manually with hands cannot break the chemical bonds that exist in the dough, which remain intact. So there is still a degree of self-organization that is maintained in the broken up dough. The only way to break up the chemical bond is through reacting it chemically, such as by putting the dough in the sink and pouring Drano or hydrochloric acid over it, and dissolving it so that it goes down the drain, or by ingesting the dough and allowing the digestive juices and secretions to chemically react the dough through digestion.

Yet even then, by reacting the dough chemically and breaking up the chemical bonds, there exists another level of self-organization in the molecular, atomic and subatomic levels, which cannot be broken by dissolving with solvent nor by eating but can only be done by having access to a cyclotron or to a very large particle accelerator that can accelerate the dough at a very high speed to smash its atoms.

But even then, once subatomic particles are broken up and smashed, there exists yet another level of self-organization in the by-products of the reacted particles in the accelerator, such as quarks and pre-quarks, neutrinos and pre-neutrinos, and so on and so on, illustrating that all the way up and down there is complexity and self organization. They are therefore an inherent part of nature in the alternate parallel universe, the then live-in girl friend argued forcefully, illustrating that no matter how you wanna slice the biscuit dough, whether manually with a pair of scissors or chemically by pouring Drano over the dough or whether in a laboratory by placing the dough into a cyclotron and smashing up its atoms, there is still a level of self-organization and complexity that is existent.  Thus, biscuit dough is a bad metaphor used in this context to disprove anything, and that the father's choice of metaphor revealed his ignorance on the topic in which he was attempting to refute, which he is fond of doing in any event as one of his past times.

Yet the father of four was still was stubbornly determined to maintain that these widely-accepted scientific concepts and facts were wrong, but did not have a valid reason for disputing them because he did not understand the subject matter that he was attempting to refute, and so his argument resorted to its logical conclusion in the absense of any real reason to dispute anything, thus resorting ultimately to an ad hominem fallacy, an attack of the person who said the idea rather than the idea, that is to say,

        A: "Self organization and complexity are inherent aspects of                         the universe."

        B: "That's dead wrong, and here's proof:

        PROOF:  BECAUSE YOU ARE ONLY BOOKSMART WITH NO COMMON SENSE."

Brilliant.

But not to belabor a point, but only to show that ad hominem remarks can put a screeching halt to any rational discourse, dead on its tracks, with no hope for reason or rationality to intervene, because to engage in ad hominem remarks is to engage in a direction away from reason to a diametrically opposite direction, to that of an irrational and pig-headed beast who just likes to argue for the sake of showcasing ignorant prejudices that are better left to himself rather than to broadcast out loud.  So, the then live-in girl friend shook her head and wondered why, in heavens, did she get stuck and then stay there for so long, and thus, moved out, not long after this conversation, taking everything with her and horded up a house full of furniture into an empty house in the back yard of her parents' house that she didn't even need at the time, leaving the father of four with his own possessions, a blow-up mattress and a TV, and now the stage is set for the following scenario.

A typical weekend in this alternate, parallel universe might find a father who had fallen on hard times and, who, in an act of selfless parental sacrifice and love, offers to give up the coveted blow-up mattress and TV every weekend for his four children, resulting inevitably in four children fighting and making rules over the blow-up mattress and having to take turns to occupy it. Over time is the inevitable falling apart of rules governing the blow-up mattress, which resulted in a reversion back to the law of the jungle, in which only the fittest and strongest survive to keep the prize of a blow-up mattress, now triumphantly occupied by the largest and fittest of the children in this one bedroom apartment, who is glued to the television, and envied by the others.

The other children make do meanwhile wandering aimlessly or sleeping, and another girl has preoccupied herself with doing cartwheels across the floor, gracefully dodging plates of unfinished meals, spilled drinks, strewn paper, blankets and pillows in disarray, a little girl curled up in a ball asleep on top of a large pile of unsorted laundry, and other objects and people because there is nowhere to put any of these random objects and people, who are all on the floor, as there is no furniture. The little girl who is sleeping had suffered a long crying spell and was lamenting over a wide range of unresolved and very vexing issues, such as being bored, her brother picking on her making her cry, not getting to watch cartoons, not getting to share the blow-up mattress; having already a long time ago protested of being tired of drawing on pieces of paper strewn all over the floor, the only activity that this unfortunate home provides in quantity for these luckless children; and was observed fretting also that no one will play with her, but her sobs fell on deaf ears, so she cried herself to sleep, on top of a pile of unsorted laundry.

A little boy is grumpy, looking tragic and downtrodden, after getting in trouble by picking on his sister and making her cry, the only activity for him anymore in this boring, empty place in order to pass the time and break up the boredom and monotony, and after going off into another empty room to hide and sulk and become invisible for a while and to ponder the injustices of life, came out of hiding and is wandering in an aimless trajectory on a collision course with a drinking cup of red liquid, that he knocks over accidentally on the beige carpet, yet continues on aimlessly as if nothing happened, apparently unperturbed or unaffected by the accident, as accidents such as these are all too commonplace in an apartment with no tables or counter space, where the children are forced to place drinking cups on the floor that get knocked over, and as the visible red stains all over the beige carpet seem to indicate.

 

 

Outside, the unit stands out glaringly and conspicuously from every other unit in the fact that no beds of flowers, hanging plants, or anything of beauty adorn the outside patio; and were it not for a man, the father, sitting on a lawn chair on the patio, and a planter with no plant on the patio, the unit would appear otherwise vacant or abandoned to any outside observer.

The father sitting on the lawn chair wears a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, standard issue for him these days.  He once had suits and ties, but they were all left at his ex-wife's house in the burbs, who never let him come back into her house to get his clothes after kicking him out. On a brighter note, however, unemployment has its perks. Not having clothes is the standard issue in his profession, and so are flip-flops and shorts, he thinks and muses to himself, for the fact that his avocation is that of a computer techie during his period of unemployment, and smokes a cigarette, flicking his ashes into a planter.

The plant had withered and died long ago; thus the inconsiderate and self-absorbed ex-girl friend thought that she would leave the dead, withered plant as a token parting gift for his family when she moved out. In it currently is a mound of cigarette butts, as he has converted it and uses it as an ashtray, resourceful man that he is with his entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, he has created a website and has moved up in this company and is the current President and Founder of it, all on his own, on the Internet, which hopefully will pick up someday so that he can buy the children furniture.

The father is taking a well-deserved leisurely break after cooking a meal of hot dogs for his kids, and now is smoking and sees some people dressed in business attire walking in his general direction. After saying a cheery hello, the business lady smiles and returns the hello, and continues past him. He chuckles to himself that he still has it, and thinks to follow her and ask her for a date, but the two people in business attire turned and disappeared around the corner, after passing his unit and a large window unadorned without window treatments or curtains or draperies, only the plastic white vertical blinds that of course came as standard feature and pre-installed in every unit and therefore unremarkable, except that the blinds have been left perpetually open by its careless inhabitants for all to see the sordid spectacle of unsavory events and living conditions in which children must reside, prompting concerned residents nearby who happen to pass and peer into the open slots of a window to contact the authorities.

Meanwhile, in this same alternate, parallel universe, exactly like this one with the exception of a thankless gesture, is a woman in a house in a subdivision in the suburbs getting ready for an active social life and various online rendevous, and her children are off with their dad. There is excitement in the air as the woman puts on make-up and straightens her hair, who is happy and humming. The weekend has just begun, and hence her freedom just begun. She has made plans to meet a mysterious and handsome rich man who appears to be potential marriage material, from his description on an online dating service, and from his emails. She hears a knock at the front door and goes to greet it, surprised that her mysterious date is arriving so early before schedule.

The woman runs downstairs in her new going outfit and high heels to greet the visitor at the door. She passes a mirror and quickly glances at her make-up and hair, hoping that she will make a good first impression. Her heart is fluttering with anticipation as she approaches the knocking. Putting on a huge smile, she opens the door graciously but is unpleasantly surprised to see a woman and a man dressed in business attire.

They are Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS) social workers who have taken custody of the children away from her ex-husband. The children are all in the back seat of their car. They inform the woman that they have been assigned to her children's case to investigate complaints they've received concerning her children's living conditions with their father. The social workers ask the woman what to do with the children in the back seat, because it appears now that she is in sole custody from now on.

The woman now has the unfortunate decision to make whether to take custody of the children, which would inevitably put a damper on her usual fun-filled, very full weekends and romantic online rendevous, and possibly a reversion back to her ho-hum existence as a single parent of four who never goes out and talks to adults, so her children will ultimately become her best friends and allies, who tell her fairy tales that she believes.

In one story, two adults were seen by the children from the back seat of a car, and started to holler and bicker about how to bake biscuits, and they would never stop. Yet the mother had stopped long ago in brain development somewhere below the metaphorical-conceptual levels of thinking, confusing scientific debate or discourse with hollering and bickering, but making the story more interesting to her, because her nature is that of concerning only in the trivial and the tripe.

In yet another story, there was a man who invited girls who get high, and then threw a gruesome and hedonistic painting party while high, painting the wall five different colors, and in the frenzy and frolic of intoxication, destroyed the kitchen and painted it mint, took off the kitchen cabinets and left them off, and then destroyed the living room, frightening the children, and behaving erratically until their highs wore off, and then passed out in states of drug-induced comas all over the kitchen and living room floors, with paint brushes still in their hands and paint soaked in their hair and clothes the next day, in the party's grisly aftermath. Then, the man who threw the painting party got in trouble because his wife came home, entered the living room and then discovered the partygoers red-handed, who were passed out in drunken stupors all over her floor.

But the story has a happy ending because the wife gets back at them, and takes someone's entertainment center and never lets her back into her house ever again, and decides to keep it, and does the same thing with her husband, and never lets him get his suits and ties and keeps them, and kicks him out.

The woman will spend the rest of her life believing in fairy tales, and who is resigned from then forward to watching Oprah and babysitting her kids, eventually growing old in solitude as a spinster, because her last chance to meet Mr. Mistery Man was snatched away by a nonexistent thankless gesture, a twist in the fabric of alternate space-time.

Alternatively, she can give the DFACS workers custody of her children to a foster home that is currently awaiting, in which case she will be free to continue her usual merry lifestyle of online dating and full weekends of social activity. She then has various whirlwind romances and gets a proposal from Mr. Mistery Man, gets married, has more kids, believe more fairy stories, goes into psychotherapy and on psychiatric medications, screams and hollers and hangs up the phone with Mr. Mistery Man, takes his clothes and never lets him back, who is $20,000 arrears in child support, then takes her new set of children to her mother, who is now in a wheelchair and feeble, gets liposuction of the lips and goes online dating, but no emails this time because she is now overdue for a face-lift, continues watching Oprah on TV, gets old, concerning herself only in the trivial and the tripe.

Feeling cheated and torn, and hating her ex-husband and his former girl friend who brought about this rude awakening, the woman ponders the injustices of life and wonders why a simple gesture of leaving some furniture behind temporarily could not have been shown by this inconsiderate and self-absorbed girl, who didn't need them and horded them up in an empty house in her parent's back yard.  The woman is perplexed that a simple arrangement that may have worked out to everyone's benefit had somehow been missed.

But she is trapped in an alternate parallel universe, where destiny and the laws of physics have no designs for the possibility for the gesture to have ever happened, and the missed arrangement will be the only guarantee that this alternate parallel universe will ever be able to produce with any certainty under any possible condition, along with the lost hope that three adults could not work out a plan that may have benefitted all. The jeering fates are now laughing from above at silly people wishing nonsensical things, and the nonexistent gesture is an indelible twist in the fabric of this alternate parallel space-time that is forever and intractiblly un-twist able, and will always and forever remain unresolvably kinked, to the misfortune of the ill-fated inhabitants who tripped and landed on their faces.