This client called this morning. I find dealing with her very distressing. She is one of these people who spins out every hypothetical thing that can go wrong, then demands a legal opinion on it. And if she can't go to Boss, she comes to me. I cannot advise her, I am not a lawyer. But she will rephrase, or just plain repeat her questions that I decline to answer, as if somehow asking it will get me to tell her that her legal idea is correct. She also goes to other sources besides Boss for legal advice, then asks me to evaluate said legal advice. She talks on and on, the same concept over and over, compulsively. It is nearly impossible to get her off the phone once she starts. And every conversation begins with an extended rehash of her anxieties about the divorce process and ends with an extended reiteration by me of what the remaining steps are and the timeline.

I try to be a sympathetic ear and a useful resource to clients, to the greatest extent possible, and people are always telling Boss how wonderful I am, but with this woman, it has gotten to the point that I have to just be rude. I just don't take her call more than once a day, or if I have ANYTHING else to do. When I do talk to her now, sometimes I cut her off and say, "You already said that" and other times I say, "What are you proposing we do?" and when I finish I just flatly say, "I will tell Boss what you said and have him call you back." And sometimes the phone call becomes 15 minutes of her blabbing and me saying, "I will tell Boss what you said and have him call you back" on a repeating loop that seems like it will never end, because she won't hang up the fucking phone. It's all I can do to not just shout at her to SHUT UP!

After dealing with her for all these months, I actually hate this woman now.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to process her final paperwork, which should have been easy, but everything went wrong. I figured out a way for Boss to sign documents while he was in Europe. Then I went to the courthouse for a couple of items I needed that were not in the file. I had not been to the courthouse on a client matter in a year. Possibly two. But I went because I was DESPERATE to get this thing done and I didn't want to have to wait on the mail to turn it around.

I hand-filed everything with great relief.

And a new judge rejected it on the basis of bad process service. The process service was fine. The judge must be high. I actually had to leave my computer and take a walk when I realized that we would have to start over FROM THE BEGINNING. I may have laughed a little hysterically. I eventually ended up in the living room where Husband, home from work, was playing a violent video game, hoping to get to watch him kill some guys, or even to offer to kill some guys for him, and I complained that he was NOT HELPING ME by being in some calm, exploratory part of the game and not blowing stuff up. He said he was sorry.

Boss has been dealing with her. We have addressed all her reasonable anxieties and there is a relatively quick way to get past this after all, without starting over from the beginning, but she is having a freak out and keeps calling with new ideas and scenarios, and today, when I was talking to her, not even trying not to be rude, I almost cried.

I hate her so, so much.

I had to bite my tongue in my SIL's FaceBook. She commented at how weird it was to do elections outside of DC. Remember that one SIL was a lobbiest for LGBT issues and the other worked for a conservative think tank. They were soaking in political friends. They had election parites. It was huge for them. So SIL comments that it is weird that she knows three people who decided who to vote for because of how mean ads were, and that no one is having election parties.


Now. One of her friends made a comment about how "from across the sea" she gets the impression that is how "most people" here make their election decisions.


1) In fact, I think most people decide in the end based on party and it is the rare person who really votes outside their party, no matter what people say about themselves.

2) It's a mistake to try to make judgments about another culture "from across the sea" because you don't really know anything about that culture, much less the ins and outs of local politics and political history. If you think you know, you are just stupid. And

3) How the hell do the towers of intellect in YOUR country make THEIR political decisions? Notwithstanding 2) above, the peasant is the peasant everywhere. There are loads of ignorant people who vote for stupid reasons every place they get to vote, I would lay down good money. Do you not have stupid, easily deceived and manipulated voters in England? I *know* they have them in Russia. Hell, what I wanted to say to that woman was, well, at least nobody gets PAID to throw their votes away here. Plenty of places where THAT happens.


Fucking arrogance, is what it is, sitting back and judging other people "from across the sea."


OK. Time to wake up the kids and get this act of civic duty on the road. I'm wearing my Rogers-Stark shirt. :)