Snoskred - Life in the Country

Somewhere in this house there are two large a4 boxes filled with legal papers. You know, like the big ones you get when you buy 5 reams of a4. I do not know where they are. I do not *want* to know where they are. I do know that I don’t *need* to know where they are because I carry them in my skull though I have tried really hard to block it out and forget. Yes, that’s a serious work out of the gray matter there. You try memorising two boxes of a4 papers, and then blocking it out and forgetting it! A lot of that stuff I spent *hours* working on.

First of all, it was impossible to get the lawyer on the phone. So when you did get her on the phone, you had to have all your ducks in a row. You had to be completely prepared with any changes to the wording that you wanted. The Other Half and I would have to have discussed what she had sent us, usually resulting in long nights spent at the kitchen table trying to work out how best to word things. Half the time, she would not approve the changes we wanted, and we would end up in long arguments which we were completely billed for. In fact every conversation with the lawyer we would be billed for, but I particularly resented the ones where she would argue with me.

So basically what would happen is our lawyer would get this long letter from her lawyer, and then we would have to address every point. The first letter contained 53, to be precise. 53 points. That one we did in sessions with the lawyer at her office. It seemed to take forever. This legal back and forth went on for two years. Well I think it was, actually I’m a little foggy on when we ended it and to be honest I’d prefer to stay foggy. Foggy is best.

I do remember towards the end, the lawyer would avoid taking my calls because we had spent so much time arguing over things - she found it was easier to deal with the other half. I can be like a dog with a bone if I think I’m right on something and she realised this. I could call and she would be out of the office, and when the other half called five minutes later she’d suddenly be available.

I’ve had a headache for two days now, just memories of the legalese coming back to me. I had a headache most of the time we were dealing with it.