captainsblog | “It’s Been a Quiet Week In Lake Wobedog…”

Friday morning before a less than quiet day to end the week:

I’m about to embark on my second travel day of the workweek, third in the last seven days, and as usual at this hour I’m just cleaning up after Pepper.

Three Dog Night? Try Four Dump Morning:P

Despite the two days on the road, the workweek has been relatively quiet. The Tuesday trip was to appear with friends of mine at a Small Claims Court hearing, the one I had gone on an adventure several weeks earlier to try to serve the guy at the wrong address. Last week then came, the last opportunity to get the guy personally served with notice of the hearing, and one of the clients decided to arrange it herself. First, I had to tell them they couldn’t do it on Sunday; when asked to explain why, I gave the obvious one-word answer:

Jesus.

One of the few remaining vestiges of ancient “blue laws” in our statute book is the absolute prohibition of serving anything on anybody on a Sunday. You cannot even serve an avowed atheist like Madalyn Murray O'Hair on a Sunday, not that it would be a good idea since she’s been dead for almost 20 years. Since the client in question is of the Reform Jewish persuasion, I quickly added that it is also illegal to serve a Jew on Shabbos, or any other observant on whatever their holy day is, but it’s up to them to raise it as a defense. Any Sunday service goes right out the cathedral door.

Monday, then. That was that quirky "not-holiday holiday" for me, but I wound up getting multiple calls about it during their scenic trip to the distant suburbs. (Lisa went with a friend, because you can't serve your own process.) The bad guy wasn’t there, of course, so they waited a bit, and then a car showed up and a woman with red hair got out. I told them that if she said she was authorized to accept service for the guy's company, go for it. She did, and there they were. All good and served.

Just one little problem: they didn’t get a name. We have to file something that says not only what and where you served but who and how. They didn’t know that part. But I put my deerstalker hat back on, googled the address, and there was Tammy- who runs, of all things, her own piano tuning business out of that same address. Problem solved, affidavit signed (eventually), and filed in time to keep this past Tuesday’s hearing on the schedule.

So of course the guy waits five days and texts the client (who promptly texts me) on Sunday night, after I'm back from my second concert in under 24 hours and about to fall down dead. He wants to know why they're suing him for $1700 when he only charged him $500 for that part of the job.

They explain to me: when he did the job, the room was stripped of all furniture and fixtures, the previous floor had been brought up and the underlaiment prepped for him. After his floor job went to merde, the new guy charged them the 1700 to re-remove all the contents, undo the job and re-prep the floor. More work, more money.

"Did you explain this to him?"

"No, he NEVER answers his phone and his voicemail is always full."

"Let me try."

Something about seeing LAW OFFICES and not ANGRY CUSTOMER on the caller ID gets your call answered.We had it settled within five minutes and the check delivered within 24 hours, by Tammy, who seemed very nice. I hope she sticks to keyboard work and not food service because, as we know,

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I wound up going to Rochester that day anyway, leaving the suit in the car in case it didn't work out, but I never had to put it on. The next two days were relatively incident free, though I did possibly resolve a case late Thursday in the best possible way: without me having to do anything of significance except Know a Guy.

Gal, actually, and it was also a she who came in with a horror story of retail hell. Purchase of a product from a well-known furniture retailer, national or at least all over the East. Fail after fail. Then the billing: a credit for $300 turned into a charge for that amount. Auto debits not being credited and already costing them over nine grand for way less than that. My first advice: tell your bank to turn off the spigot, then you have a Fixed Point In Time to work from. Calculate back how much, at most, you owed them, and you can bring (hopefully) a $5,000 or smaller Small Claim for the difference.

Then I remember, though: I have a longtime client who, at our last dealing last fall, worked for that chain. Not the locations New Client was using, but maybe she knew someone? I called. Miracle 1: I got her. Miracle 2: the regional Customer Care Manager was in her store at that very moment. Phone numbers were exchanged, and quite possibly they will clean up their mess without the lawyer having to do it.

Hey, I've already got a dog for that, yo.

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Speaking of:

Pups have been bustin' out all over the past few days, mostly for good.

This little guy (we checked) was outside poetry Wednesday night. He HAD to be scritched and snuggled.

Then, on walkies late Thursday (Pepper missed out that morning due to a very early-for-me first appointment), I saw the Bernese next door just hangin' out over the fence:

Clearly he's auditioning for the part of Wilson in the Home Improvement reboot #HeidiHoThereNeighbor

His daddy: “I don’t think he’s figured out he can just jump over.”

Me: “Well, I’m certainly not telling him.”

The sad news from the Woof Street Journal, though, came while I was at the office Thursday: when Eleanor was bringing in the just-emptied multiple cans from last weekend's clear-cutting, she saw our immediate across-the-street neighbor. Ellen reported that she recently had to put down Bernie Bob, her 14 year old Bassett, whose peals of dogginess had been in our less floppy ears for probably a decade. In recent years, Ellen also had to mourn a smaller dog they kept and, last winter, her older and disabled sister Lois. The biggest change in now being there all alone? It's so QUIET now!

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This catches up through yesterday morning. That day's much more busy events, including travel, exercise and comedy, will follow. Eventually.