Divorce Court

[captainsblog]

I spent a good part of my morning shuffling papers around a labyrinth of downtown court offices. One to get a case number assigned, a second to have my assignment papers "checked," back to the first to file the "checked" document and pay for it, then back to the second to spin the wheel and assign a judge, and finally Door Number Three, the chambers of the actual jurist who will hear this case sometime in May.

That was annoying, but it's not the sad part.

At every one of those stops (except the last one, where I was just dropping off papers in an empty courtroom), there were people in line ahead of me, or coming in behind me, who were dealing with the down-and-dirty of the divorces they'd been trying to file, or had filed, or needed to find out how to file- not a one of them with the assistance (at least on site) of a lawyer. One of them was toting an infant that couldn't have been more than six months old.

I've been in these buildings for over two decades, and know the intricacies of the non-matrimonial paperwork I file in them, and even I find the runaround to be a bit disheartening. I can only imagine how the go-it-aloners must feel.

The folks in the queue ahead of me at the fourth stop were in this quandary. They'd come in with stacks of Acceptable Forms of Government Identification, and multiple paid-stamped copies of all sorts of previous documents, but had absolutely no clue how to get the simple thing they wanted out of all of it- an order allowing the ex-wife to change her name. They'd been shuffled between the two offices I'd been playing Where's Waldo with all morning, and it finally developed that the ex needed to have her signature notarized. And no, there wasn't a single clerk in that office- the final stop of resort for any uncontested divorce in this entire county- who could perform this service for them.  They were referred back to Office Number One- in an interconnected building, at least, but still, one more annoying stop on a journey that must have seemed endless to them by then.

Seeing their 300 forms of ID on the counter, I told them that if they still couldn't get those documents notarized after that one last rigamarole, I would go out to my car, get my stamp, and notarize it for them if I was still there when they got back. It wound up not being necessary, but while I didn't see anyone being overtly rude to them, neither did I see anyone going out of their way to kill them with kindness. I'd like to think my little smidge of it helped.

Comments

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

Here You Come to Save the DAAAAAAYYYYYY!

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

it is moments like these that restore my faith in human kindness. even though you didn't end up having to notarize for them, i'm certain you made their day.