M-Day, Part One

Last night I was on Mapquest, and I discovered that my mediation in the morning was downtown. Learning this was worse than the time I was moving my futon and I dropped it on my big toe and got to discover for the first time what the flesh under a toenail looks like.

I called up Aimee, who has many times driven me through the jungle-of-one-way-streets they call downtown, and asked her where Ross Street was. Which to me, is about the equivalent of asking how to get to Croatia from Brazil.

Aimee, THE BEST FRIEND EVER, volunteered to drive my sorry directionless ass to my mediation. In the morning. At 8. On her day off.

For those who have never been through the experience of broken families, mediation is where you sit down with your recent ex, who is all full of rotten feelings, and try to work out custody with a third party whose main job is to keep you from assaulting each other.

Aimee got me there 15 minutes before my appointment, which was great because I didn't anticipate that the courthouse security line would stretch from Pittsburgh to Brazil. I made it in just in time, took a seat, and began examining the pattern of the carpet.

Joe showed up about 10 minutes late, carrying a folder full of papers and appearing exasperated. Apparently he didn't anticipate the security line either. He went up to the window and gave his name and they asked him for "the fee."

He produced a receipt and they said it wasn't the right one. There was another fee for this procedure. He demanded that the mediation be rescheduled. The woman calmly told him it couldn't be... and if he didn't come up with "the fee," he would be "held in contempt."

I looked through my purse for cash to cover him, but I didn't have enough. I just wanted it over with.

He huffed off, came back and sat down, huffed off again, came back and sat down. I had moved on to counting the scuff marks on the floorboards and wondering how they determined to measure and cut the drop ceiling. Joe was pulling papers out of his folder and little slips flew under the chair, and peripherally I watched as he bent down to search for them.

A lawyer sat next to me to speak with her client, and I tried hard not to listen, but I heard the client saying that she didn't want her child subjected to "this man" anymore, that her ex was dating "Sharon," and "Liz," and a bunch of other women she named, and that the ex told her child not to tell her about it, and this woman told her lawyer to not back down, but she said it not in a demanding way, but in a very desperate way, and she kept saying, "It's not fair," and it just really broke my heart to think of what the family was going through, but even worse what the child had to deal with: a couple of parents who were worried about what was fair for THEM.

I tried to stop listening.

A half hour after our appointment time, the woman called Joe and me to the window and told us there would be a contempt hearing scheduled for Joe.

I didn't have to go, but I was welcome to.

While she explained this to me, she seemed to completely disregard Joe, but that might have had something to do with watching me pick my jaw up off the floor, as I'm sure that's the most exciting part of her job outside of watching bailiffs throw badass parents to the ground before escorting them out.

Joe: in contempt of court.

This just keeps getting better.

On the way out, Joe told me that it was a clerical error and it was his lawyer's fault. It's always someone else's fault.

I just told him I was glad I cut my camping trip short for that 30 minutes of super-charged monotony.


And I walked away.