Post Game Wrap Up

Charlotte and I leave the courthouse together, incredulously, making cordial small talk with Lars. It is like the Twilight Zone.

Lars says he hates coming to the courthouse and hearing everyone's atrocious horror stories. I say I am mortified that the judge turned our story into something all the other people in court will go home and talk about around their dinner tables. Charlotte wonders aloud if it is an election year and we can campaign to unset the bastard.

I am growing more and more unsteady on my feet as we walk away from Lars at last. I am happy to reach a bar stool at the local Irish pub. Charlotte and I look at each other in complete disbelief and simultaneously frantically wave for the bartender.

The humiliations.

The financial impact.

The complete smackdown.

It is going to be a hard story to retell to all the people who will ask. My girlfriends. Craig. My boss who'd penned the helpful letter.

That's what beer is for. Drenching the details and hoping when they dry they tell a decent story.  I order two. Charlotte dives into her pinot grigio. Her wheels are turning. I can practically hear them.

I try to tell her it was only half as bad as I expected (aside from the losing part, which I did not expect.) and repeat what a former attorney colleague of mine once told me when I was getting divorced. He was a six-time divorcee and knew his way around a marriage dissolution like no other.

"There is nothing fair about Family Court."

Those who have had to climb into the ring and fight know this:  You think you can predict what will happen but you can't.  If it makes perfect sense to you and all of your friends, the Master will take a completely opposing philosophy. Logic is checked  at the door to Judge's chambers and it is Anything Goes the entire time.  No one will be at all sure whose interests are being served. It is a courtroom evidently run by the folks from Monty Python and you are on a roller coaster ride in the dark.  You can hear yourself screaming inside your own head the moment you cross the threshold. And afterwards you are not completely convinced you haven't just narrowly survived a bad car accident.

An observer sitting safely on the sidelines is nearly always shocked and appalled. It is like watching someone play a video game they've never played before. Bombs and bullets and grenades in every direction and every so often, a random appearance of an alien determined to bite your head off. Only it isn't just a video game. You really could die.

It's a bloody disaster. And Charlotte has had front row seats.  I am not sure who is having a more difficult time comprehending. But we know we get to do it all again in three months. God love us and spare us.