You got served! Or GTFO...

So I'm standing in my kitchen last night, loading my dishwasher, minding my own biddness when guess who pulls up in my driveway? Yeah, the Sheriff. Now, I'm fairly hard to rattle, and I do tend to keep my cool at all times, but I'm pretty sure that a police car in the drive is never good news. Thankfully, Him and SweetieDarling were both home, so I didn't have that fear. (You know, the one where they take off their hat and say "Ma'am, I've got some bad news). Officer Fife spends a good ten hoursminutes shuffling papers and saying important stuff on his radio, while I'm in an agony of suspense. Finally, he comes to the door and, like he doesn't know I'm hovering on the other side (waiting to see if his gun is out) does his official policeman knock. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of the Official knock, it goes a lil somethin like this:

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!!!!!!!!

I answer the door all nonchalant, cause I'm cool like that and he verifies who I am and hands me a....wait for it......five day eviction notice!!!!! FIVE DAYS to get out of the house I've lived in for TEN years. Well, good folks of the internets, lets get one thing clear on the frontside: I'm not late with my mortgage. I haven't violated my agreement with my mortgage company in any way. I know that this is a mistake, a clerical error, the wrong account number transposed, any number of things. I know that, even if this summons is somehow legit, that I can fight it (I do have a bit of a legal background), but even knowing these things, I was more scared than I have been in a looooonnng time. And I don't like to be scared.

Because I got served in the evening, I had all night to worry about this. No one I could call to straighten it out, no one to reassure me that of course it was a mistake, that I wouldn't have to find a place to rent, pack up my house, uproot my children, board the dogs I have left, all in FIVE DAYS. It was one of the longest, scariest, most alone nights I've had for a while.

I had all night to ponder the sweat equity I've put into this house. How I bought it at an auction for $50k and made it worth many times that. How I gutted it down to the bones and rebuilt it the way I wanted it to be. How everything is geared to my height of only 5'. All the cabinets, shelves, anything I need to reach, I can. How the pool is located right up against the east deck, like another room in the house and how I would miss laying under the 80' oak tree in the front yard even though I curse it and wish blight on it when I'm cleaning up leaves and acorns. How the frogs just started singing in the pond last week, and the koi are just now waking, and how piglet's room gets flooded with the morning son and how DARE someone try to take my home. HOW DARE THEY? And then I got mad, good and goddamned pissed off is what I got. Who in the hell has the right to make someone feel vulnerable in their own home? How could someone be so careless as to go through all of the motions of filing an eviction order and not verify that their information is correct? Yes, law is boring and tedious, but it's a very detailed profession. DETAILS, like who you are seeking to evict, are very important.

I spent a night in hell because an under(if at all)paid intern at the law firm picked up the wrong file. I did my time as an intern and I know how easy it is to make a mistake, but I trained my share of interns too, and it was my job to catch their mistakes. Somebody didn't do his job. I know who, and why, and girlfriends, me and him's gonna have us a face to face reeeaal soon. Like Monday. I know what you're thinking, it was a mistake, they happen. Which is true and I admire your live and let live thinking. But a few too many mistakes have happened with this particular attorney for it to be coincidence anymore. He got bested by me a hundred years ago, in another lifetime, and just.can't.let it go. I'll let you know if there are any survivors.

But on a more positive note, I'm really appreciating my house right now. And I'll get that "breathe" tattoo next week.