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Hilarious email I got from a guy I work with...

388 views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  King James 
#1 ·
....thats going thru a divorce (or trying to). I been hearing about this weekly now for almost 3 years (yes, thats how long its been taking) here in California.
Read his email (I cut & pasted it) (and yes, its REALLY happening to him)
I felt it appropriate for the jokes forum due to the California legal system concerning divorces.

****WARNING*****
**SEMI-FOUL LANGUAGE USED FREQUENTLY**
****PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK****
















To whom it may concern, to those who give a shit, and/or to those who may even have a slight and passing interest in my "situation", I have written a tale. A tale of epic proportions (not really). A tale of love, hate, sadness, despair, bureaucracy, frustration, resolute determination, and determined resolution.
It should be safe for work, unless that is, your boss frowns upon you reading sordid tales involving drunken debauchery, senseless violence, wild and crazy sex, time-travel, and animal sacrifice.
So, without further ado (well, maybe a little more ado, just because I like that word), I bring to you my story..........


Last Sunday I approached my mailbox as I have for the last few weeks with a mix of hopeful anticipation and grudging acceptance of my continued status in limbo. You see faithful reader, I have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of some papers. Happy-papers as I have taken to calling them. This is because their receipt would indeed make me a happy man. A very happy man as my fate will finally have been decided and my future opened up to the widest possibilities and endless opportunities.

And so, as I inserted my key into the mailbox I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and steel my reserve, and then slowly and resolutely opened the door to examine what booty lie inside. I retrieve the prodigious haul of loot, close and lock the door, and head back to the house. On the way back across the street I begin to sort the contents. The regular paper envelops up front, shiny ones from mortgage brokers and credit card companies to the back. They get to join the pennysaver and the mailers from Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs, Stater Bros, El Supermercado Vallarta, Target, et cetera, et cetera.

You see, regardless of what you tell the mailman or what forms you may file with the post office in a futile effort to keep unsolicited mail out, this is big business for the US postal service and they get lots of money for delivering it. Should you object on an environmental basis, or just as a matter of inconvenience, it matters little to the bean counters behind their desks at the USPS, they have to make their numbers damn it, and they mean to do it any way they can!!

Alas, I digress dear reader and, I admit, I will do so often in this sordid tale. I like to digress and damn it, I mean to do it any way I can!!
Anyway, once the basic sorting process is complete, I'm home. The crap goes into the recycle bin, the rest I carry to my desk where I can continue on with the more detailed analysis and sorting. I scan the return addresses for the one piece of mail I actually seek, sorting into piles as I go. Bills over here, crap I need to file away over there, credit card offers and other items that may lend a hand to identity thieves into the shred pile over there.

Finally, my eyes alight upon a plain envelope. Could it be? No, can it truly be? It is hand addressed to me. No pre-printed labels or faux handwriting that is simply printed on the envelope no! This is important stuff for, as you know, the best stuff that comes in the mail is always the best. The return address field bears the official stamp of the Los Angeles Superior Court. My heart beats faster. My hand starts to shake. For I know that this is either my salvation (in the form of the happy-papers) or my doom (in the form of a summons to take care of my unpaid parking tickets!). I take a deep breath to calm my nerves.
Then inspiration hits me and I reverently put the envelope down and head to the fridge where I extract and open a beer. After opening and draining half of it, I'm ready to face anything (hmmmmmm.........I wonder where I got THAT habit from?). I figured I'd leave half of it so that I could either celebrate, or begin the process of drowning my sorrows.

I find myself back at my desk, beer in one hand, envelope in the other. I put the beer down and say to myself 'fugg-it, Drive on' and open the fateful envelope.
Inside, I find a single sheet of pink paper with an official looking stamp on it. Now, in the state of California or, ITSOC, as I am fond of referring to this phrase, things with official looking stamps are legal forms and all legal forms have a unique number and title. This particular piece of pink paper was numbered FL-190 and titled "Notice of Entry of Judgment". In layman’s terms, this means "yer deee-vorced pardner".

YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAWWW!!!!!! I start to do the happy dance, I jump for joy, and I virtually explode with an overwhelming sense of relief and shout my feelings to the heavens. I take Joe turtle out of his tank and spin him around the room in an ecstatic dance of super-good-happy-funtime-joyness (OK, so he's a turtle. So what? I was the only one home at the time and needed someone to dance with ok?).

Once I come down from my euphoric high, and Joe is back to swimming around, I take a closer look just to make sure I understand it all and that everything is correct. It's dated August 25, ok, noting out of the ordinary there. Addresses are correct. Names are correct, no problems there. My eyes fall upon the line "Effective date of termination of marital or domestic partnership status" and I freeze. My eyes widen in sudden horror. A sharp pain in my chest causes my heart to skip a beat, stop for a second, and then start beating again irregularly. My mouth starts to form into a grim ricktus of anger, hatred, and disgust as a primal scream of pain escapes my mouth. A carnal howl that harkens back to the days when mankind huddled in caves performing strange dark rituals to please the gods of fire, earth, wind and water. As this painful expression of rage and pains rips its way up my throat, tearing it to shreds, I raise my fists to the sky (er.....the ceiling actually but sky sounds so much better. come on people, it's called "artistic license") as it transforms from an unintelligible shriek to NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Much cursing ensues. I cycle through my vast repertoire of insulting phrases, standard curse words, ******* and pirate influenced phrases, and new and unique combinations of such. After about 5 minutes of this, once I realize that I've begun repeating myself, I calm down and stop. Now it's time to ease my sore and parched throat. Over the lips and past the gums, watch out stomach, here it comes. As the rum burned it's way down my gullet, soothing the torn flesh of my tender throat, I walked back to the now discarded paper to stare at it in disbelief.
You see dear reader, what I saw on that fateful line told me that no, I'm not "done". I am not "deee-vorced pardner". At least, I won't be until that date, December 13th, 2006. Merry fugging Christmas!!!

My elation spent. My rage similarly spent, I lapsed into a state of simple acceptance. What could I do? As they say, you can't fight city hall. Or can you? The answer would have to wait till the morn, for, it being Sunday, there was no way to find out if there was a loophole I could ruthlessly exploit. Some technicality that would get me off the hook. Some precedent that a good ole dirty-rat sleazebag of a lawyer could cite to change my fate and finally set me free. I would bide my time and make a call in the morning. Until then, well, there was half a beer and plenty o rum fer the drinking, so let me tell ya, I got right down to it.

So, you've read my tale so far and we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, or so it would seem....... The conclusion to this saga of heartbreak and frustration is still a ways off my friend. There are some loose ends that need tying up and a few facts that need to be shared to help explain why it is, that the effective date is in December. And we still have to have a not-altogether accurate re-hash of the phone conversation with the aforementioned sleazebag and the research undertaken by myself to see if there is any way out of this predicament. And of course, the executive summary and final conclusions. As well as a blistering op-ed piece on the legal system as it pertains to family law and the justice system in general. But, I may save that for another day.


Let us rewind to the spring of '04. My not-so-soon-to-be ex and I were sitting in our mutual lawyers office. You see, I had started the process myself with the original filing, or, in legalese, filing with the Los Angeles Superior court, Family law division form FL-100, Petition for dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership. However, to ensure that all the I's were dotted and T's were crossed so that we could have an open and shut case, I retained a lawyer for us to finish up with all the rest of the forms and filings. We sat there, having previously negotiated the terms of the cease-fire, as some of the mechanics (personally, I call them shenanigans, but, you say tomay-toe....I say tomah-toe....) of how a default divorce goes down here ITSOC.

So, in a nutshell, I'll outline for you faithful reader, some of the shenanigans that are supposed to happen (I'm not kidding here, these shenanigans have been legislated!) so that you can compare how cheap, easy, FAST and painless it can be to get married, but woe betide ye who shall break the covenant and wish to go your separate ways.

Step One. File a petition and pay the filing fee of $300. Along with the petition there are some disclosure forms; financial, personal property, child information etc.

Step Two. Have someone other than you give him or her to the other party, or in legalese, the respondent. When they do, they have to shout, "You got served, BIATCH!" and fill out a "Proof of service form" which they give to you and you file with the court. This starts a countdown. Similar to the one NASA uses for shuttle launches, only much longer, 6-months. Remember that. It's an important countdown.

Step Three. Each party fills out and files more disclosure forms regarding their individual income, and how they think the property and the children should be divided. We hashed out the details between us with much cursing and waving or arms and finally came to an agreement. For real estate, I personally went with the "I'll buy you out by giving lots of money and keep the house" option rather than selling it and splitting the profits 50/50. For our daughter, I opted not to try and split her 50/50 as it is messy, frowned upon by law enforcement as well as the courts and the public in general, and it's really hard to teach a kid to ride a bike when they only have one arm and one leg. We opted instead for the time-share option @ 50/50. If you both agree what the split of the loot should be, it's called an uncontested dissolution. That translates to "much cheaper than a contested dissolution" as the lawyer fees are a one-time deal and not an ongoing bleeding off of the spirit and financial hemorrhaging associated with a contested one.
After much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine how much child support and/or vaginamoney.....er......I mean alimony.... yeah that's it, alimony, is going to be paid to and by whom. They eventually get back to you and tell you what the terms are.

Step four. You file a request to enter default dissolution.
After much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine........ well, this time they just do it for fun. But this step does make the court clerks go back through everything to check for any un-dotted i's and un-crossed t's. If they find any, everything come to a screeching halt until new, replacement, corrected papers are filled. No whiteout here people. That stuffs not good enough for L.A. County, nor for the great state of California. After all, we are the land of fruits and nuts, so, everything has to be a little "quirky" here.

Step Five. You file a request to enter a judgment.
After much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine if indeed you are allowed to file a final judgment. They get back to you and tell you "Go ahead pardner, If yer feeling froggy, jump".

Step Six. You file a judgment that lists the terms of the surrender......er......I mean cease-fire......er........I mean dissolution. Which includes the nitty gritties of what you agreed to in the cease-fire negations and what the court figured out you'd pay by reading the bones.
After much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine if the terms are acceptable to the court. If they are, the court eventually gets back to you with form FL-190, Notice of Entry of Judgment that has a date on it. Remember the countdown? Come on, rack your brains. You can cheat if you want, I don't mind, I have flimsy moral standards. Go back a few paragraphs if you have too. That’s right folks; the effective date is mysteriously linked to the countdown. It's 6 months from the date of service!!!!! So, even should the gods smile upon you and all of your papers are filled out right, your I's dotted, T's crossed, an act of Congress fast tracks your paperwork through, there are no goat shortages, and the whole process only takes a few weeks (hahahahahah..... that's a good one. Really, I teared up writing that I laughed so hard!), you've still got T minus 6 months.


(continued in next post)
 
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#2 ·
(....continued)

Fast forward to May of '06. I get a call from my attorney. Well, his legal assistant anyway. She has some bad news. "I'm sorry to tell you this Mr. Levier, but, when the original proof of service was filed, my predecessor omitted Mrs. Levier's middle initial, so, they kicked it back [apparently, they don't read the bones when you first file the proof, they wait until you file the request to enter default before proofreading anything]. She needs to be re-served." No problem says I, I'm heading out to Minnesota in a couple weeks anyway, I'll just have her signed and served there. And yes, I did shout the requisite "You got served, BIATCH!". Little did I know that this act would prove to act as a quasi-time travel trigger.

So I get back from vacation, give the papers to Sommer (her predecessor was sooooo much cuter than her. I liked her a lot. Till I found out that she was prego and probably why she buggerred up my paperwork. Now I curse her and her offspring for the next 3 generations to forever have their undergarments infested with 1000 fleas!!), and ask her what kind of timeframe we're looking at now. She tells me that if all goes well and there are no goat shortages, I should be divorced by the end of the summer. I wondered if she was surreptitiously hitting on me by implying that if I engaged in risky sexual behavior with her that I would be divorced???? Get it? End of summer? Her name is Sommer? Oh forget it. Anyway, I thought this was good news to me. LIES!! All LIES!!! The dirty, lying, lie faced, liar!!

Now for the time travel part. You see, when I re-served the papers, it magically went back in time and erased the original service (that I now know never happened) in the lawyer's office. This also had the disastrous effect of re-starting the countdown! Remember that pesky little thing? Time travel indeed! So, do the math. December 13th minus 6 months equals June 13th, the date I served the respondent. Make sense now? Good, cuz I'm still massively fugging confused.

We're almost there gang, the end of the tale. Stick with me just little longer.

I had to find out if there was a loophole I could ruthlessly exploit. Some technicality that would get me off the hook. Some precedent that a good ole dirty-rat sleazebag of a lawyer could cite to change my fate and finally set me free. Hmmmmm..... didn't I already type that? Deja vu? Time travel? or copy/paste? you decide.
So I make a phone call to the liar's office for some advice. Here is my brief and wildly inaccurate synopsis (as promised) of the conversation:
Me: December 13th? WTF? I understand the whole 6-month thing. Well, actually, I don't understand it per se. To me, it's fugging retarded. But I do understand that the 13th is 6 months from the 2nd time I served her. Since the first proof of service was lacking a certain letter and punctuation mark, the court basically thinks that it never happened right?

Liar: Pretty much.
Me: Is there anything I can do? Some kind of affidavit or waiver? Travel back in time and fix the paperwork? Anything?
Liar: Well, we could submit a petition to amend the judgment.
Me: And then?
Liar: Well, after much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine if they'll let us. Then we wait for them to get back to us.
Me: And then?
Liar: We submit an amended Judgment.
Me: And then?
Liar: Well, after much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine if they'll accept the changes. Then we wait for them to get back to us.
Me: And then?
Liar: We submit a request for a hearing.
Me: And then? (see a pattern here??)
Liar: Well, after much shuffling of papers by the court, much arm-waving and forehead-furrowing, they then sacrifice a goat, read it's entrails and toss the sacred rune-covered bones onto the pentagram chalked out in powder ground from the bones of the sacred panda upon the floor to determine when they want you to come in to court and tell the Judge to his face what changes you want, and why you want them. Then we wait for them to get back to us with a date for the hearing.
Me: And when do you think the hearing would be?
Liar: Well, since they're really backed up right now, and because of heightened security precautions that have affected the importation of goats suitable for sacrifice, you'd probably get a hearing somewhere around thanksgiving. But, the Judges like to go on vacation around that time so, you'd probably show up and be the only one there and have to re-schedule for the first week in December.
Me: Would I have to sacrifice a goat?
Liar: If you could find one, yes. You'd probably be better off bringing your own.
Me: OK, then what?
Liar: Well, if the Judge is in a good mood at the hearing, you manage to avoid pissing him off, and the planets are aligned right.
Me: Yeah?
Liar: There would be much shuffling of papers, much arm-waving, forehead-furrowing, and clearing of throats, they then would amend the judgment and you would be completely divorced.
Me: And how much would this cost me?
Liar: Well, there would be an additional filing fee of 300 bucks, my attorney fees of say..... 300 bucks, and the cost of a goat. Don't worry though; I could throw that in for free. I know a guy <wink, wink> (he actually said 'wink, wink').
Me: So, I could drop another six-hundo and be divorced on.......?
Liar: Somewhere around the December 13th. Merry Christmas!
Me: Oh....ok. Uh, never mind. Bye.
<click>

So there you have it. A tale of epic proportions. As promised, I managed to squeeze in the debauchery, sex, violence, sacrifice and time travel. Pretty cool huh?
Executive summary time, gather round children! If you're easily offended by foul language, stop reading now. I'm serious; it's pretty bad down there. I'll let you know when it's safe to read again.
Summary:

Bitch fuggs up paperwork, which necessitates re-serving the un-fugged up papers.

Papers re-fugging served which causes a big assed fugging hole in the time-space continuum, sucking in the circumstances of the first service like a cheap hooker after you promise her a hundred dollar tip.

God-damned countdown is reset

Bunch of useless fugging goats sacrificed. Saving them the fate of being fugged by curious farm boys.

The Biatch lies about when I'll be divorced.

I get my fugging judgment and fly into a rage, causing permanent heart damage and driving me to drink (like I really needed help doing that!)

I get told that I'm abso-fugging-lutely fugged and even if I drop a shitload more cash by multiple attorney type folks, I can't really do a goddamn thing about it.

I say fugg it. Drive on.

IT"S SAFE TO READ AGAIN!!!

As for my conclusion, think about this for a minute or two:

Marriage license - 50 bucks
Justice of the peace to marry you - Free
Time spent from start to finish - 1 hour tops.
Pros: No 6 month "cooling off" period. Cheap. Fast.
Cons: YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED! HELLO?!?!

When the shit hits the fan however, try this on for size:
Filing fee - 300 bucks.
Attorney fee - 600 bucks minimum (and that's if you get extremely lucky)
Time spent from start to finish - Judging from MY situation? 2.5 years? Seriously though, 6 months minimum.
Pros: YOU'RE GETTING DIVORCED! HELLO?!?!
Cons: you're now an alcoholic (debatable whether that's a con, but.......), you have ulcers, and you're still not divorced because of the retarded 'cooling off' period.

Seems to me that they got the whole thing ass-backwards. You should have to pay out the ass to get a marriage, wait six months, drink yourself silly, and pay an attorney to negotiate the wedding terms. When the shit does hit the fan though, do it like they do in India; Say, "I divorce you" 3 times in a row and bada-bing, bada-boom, yer done!
 
#5 ·
wow that was a long read haha. Definately a tale of epic proportions though. kinda makes me not want to ever get married just in case I would have to go through that haha.
 
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