Tonight I brought the boy into the kitchen and looked him in the eye, "I don't want any backtalk.
I don't want any argument.
I don't want you to tell me what your friends are doing tonight.
I will not take no for an answer.
This is what you are going to do."
I saw the look come across his face that told me he wasn't happy but he knew there was no way out.
"Go over to that couch, sit on your butt and play video games until midnight."
He has been in full compliance. I guess I showed him who's Boss.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Does anybody know...?
I remember a movie that had a soliloquy similar to this:
It was delivered from the gallows.
Does anyone remember this?
In my short and merry life I have loved many.
(crowd murmurs)
But once, and only once, have I ever trusted a woman.
(crowd grows louder)
and that is why I stand here today!
(crowd erupts with howls and hoots)
It was delivered from the gallows.
Does anyone remember this?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Case number two: Yankee Get Home
Case Two:
Yankee Get Home
(for best viewing go to http://myrtlebeachdude.blogspot.com )
The Plaintiff: Mortimer Ricketybones
- A retired NY couple now re-retiring to Myrtle Beach. He claims the defendant breeched a realty (pronounced REELuhty) contract and owes him over $7000 for his motel bills, meals and a Realtor's (REELuhter) lost commission.The Defendant: Elmer Gudolboy
- A dude from up nawth who has lived here twenty years and now considers himself a local. He says he was waiting to sign the papers when the old guy found another house and left him hanging.Last year more people moved to the Independent Republic of Horry County from Florida than from any other state. The trend in Yankees moving to Florida is changing due to the High Crime and Cost of houses in the Sunshine State, plus the fact that Geezers have a hard time making the drive from Dade County to Lonnnnge Eyeland for Christmas in less than a week. As you know, folks from the other side of the twentieth century have a natural born fear of "them flying contraptions" so the best alternative to paradise is the palmetto state. Plus we have more golf courses so the menfolk can dawdle about and ignore the missus for quite some time before they've played 'em all.
The Case:
Mr. Morty Ricketybones came up and looked at Elmer Gudolboy's house in Early August. Said he wanted that baby, surenuff.
"How long till yous can vacate the premises and give me possession?"
"I reckon I could find me another place to live perty quick", Said Elmer.
They strike a deal and Morty gets his Realtor to scribble up a contract, contingent on the purchase of another house by Elmer and set a date of Sept 27 as the closing. A lawyer apparently dots the T's and crosses her eyes.
Just a few days later, Elmer calls up Morty and tells him he has a rush deal on a little house that he can live in till he builds on a plot of land he has in mind. Says he's probably gonna settle up on about August 15 on account of the little house is vacant and ready to go.
Morty Proceeds to call in the Teamsters and have his kit and caboodle hauled up to Myrtle toot sweet. He arrives on the 15th of August and tells Elmer that he's ready to move in.
"Well dang", says Elmer "The ink ain't dry on the papers for my new place and I have got to pack up twenty years of accumulations and get all moved. Besides, I still need to finish up that little list of doo dads from your house inspector's run through. And the dadburn closin date is set for the 27th."
"Sheesh!" replies Morty.
So Morty and the missus move in to the motel with the two dogs and commence to waiting.
On the 26th he finally goes by the house with his inspector to check off the list of 11 items that were noted in the inspection report.
Pay attention here because it gets sticky
Among the 11 things on the report are danglin' soffit and missing shingles. Mr Morty doesn't go around back and look at the soffit or crawl up on the roof to check for missing shingle tabs.
For those of you who don't get many hurricanes, shingles can get all tore up and you need to slide some back in now and then. Its just normal wear and tear.
The Gudolboy family was still moving out - boxes all over the house, two pieces of furniture still inside.
Morty's Reeluhter, Willie Gettit, testified that the house didn't look ready the night before closing. On cross, he admitted that he did not look at the specific items in question. Just that it didn't look ready.
Next morning at 10 when the closing is supposed to take place Morty was at his Lawyers office. Elmer never showed. He has his lawyer fax a release from the contract to Elmer's Lawyer and he goes looking for another house.
He claims Elmer wanted to sell to someone else at a higher price and blew the deal on purpose.
(reload the page for the theme song again)
The Defense:
Elmer gets up in court and asks Morty if he ever actually inspected the property on the morning of closing and confirmed it was not ready to sell.Morty says, "It wasn't ready the afternoon before how could you get it ready in one night?"
Elmer says he finished up the moving and a few minor repairs and was waiting at his lawyers office across town on the closing date. He says Morty's lawyer never called his lawyer and just faxed a release from the contract.
Elmer's Lawyer closes with the fact that either Morty's Reeluhter or Lawyer added the phrase "Time is of the essence" on the contract so expectation to close on the closing date was, well, "not how we do it in South Carolina". Morty never called to negotiate any of the things he found unreasonable and Morty had in fact been eying Elmer's neighbor's house, which was priced lower. It was he who ended the deal and no one else was responsible. "Pay the motel man and get on with your life, dude."
The Magistrate Charges the Jury
: South Carolina law only expects a contract to be carried out on time when the phrase "Time is of the essence" appears directly after the date by which the contract is to be carried out. Really. Don't expect anything in this state to be done on time unless you offer a bonus for early finish or stipulate a penalty for late performance and you had better jot "Time is of the essence" right there in black ink.Deliberation
: Because the plaintiff chose not to hire a lawyer, he was not quite as thorough as he should have been (just being from New York does not make you a lawyer) so the only article which he entered into evidence was the contract for sale of the house. No inspectors report. No motel bills. No pictures of the roof. Nuttin.The one thing that had bugged me throughout the whole case was that from the opening statements both parties had each claimed to be at separate lawyers offices on the closing date. I was determined that the one who was at the location stipulated on the contract would be the one I was going to vote for.
When The contract made it around the table and was in front of me I could not believe what I saw.
...take place at to be determined
I was flabbergasted. Many other Jurors were set back as well.
Horry County has one of the highest Reeluhter to population ratios in the world. We have had a property value boom for the last 15 years that just topped out this past summer. The result of which was that every person who could focus on the strenuous 1 day course and pass the arduous 1 page exam was welcomed to the fraternity. The more closings, the more the prices soared. So, as you can rightly understand, about a third of the people on the jury either were a Reeluter or married to one.
The Reeluhter that was trying to get his commission from the failed deal had written such a sloppy contract that he had done himself in. We could easily believe that Elmer had indeed been sitting in his lawyer's office waiting for Morty's Solicitor to make the deal happen on the date in question.
Verdict
:We unanimously found for the Defendant. The plaintiff had not proved his case and more importantly had such bad representation for the deal that we believed his shyster probably did not call the other advocate to say, "let's get together."Result
: We found out later that this case had been going on for over three years. It was the second time to go before a court, the first being thrown out by a judge on point of Law because Morty did something against procedure. Evidently Morty felt he would have sympathy of the Jury because he was old, he had to stay in a motel and he had two Weimaraners, one of which died four days after the sale fell through.Morty bought a house around the corner from Elmer's, for less money and closed in 18 days.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Jury Duty Case 1
I know everybody is on edge to hear the results of the cases I so judiciously jury-fied this past week.
The Independent Republic of Horry County sent an invitation for me to apply my wisdom to the disputes between my fellowcitizens residents.
Case one: Four (admittedly) illegal aliens contended that they worked for an (alleged) illegal alien for four weeks on a construction project at the Market Commons in Myrtle Beach. They said the defendant never paid them for this work. They also said that there were ten other men that all worked on the same building and lived in the same trailer (that the defendant provided).
14 men+ 1 trailer+no running water or electricity = nothing unusual.
They didn't complain about the living conditions, just the lack of pay.
The defendant (M*^@$#)admitted that all of this was true but said that he worked for a company called M&M Construction owned by Silvia M$#^^%&*#$% and was not responsible. He never explained who the other M in M&M was. He also failed to explain that his business card for his own company, M*^@$# Framing had the same phone number that was used to open the bank account for M&M.
On cross we found out that M*^@$# shared a child and address with M$#^^%&*#$% .
Then he tried to say he fired them because they were drunk all the time. For a month.
Deliberation: Since the Federl Gubmint won't do their job, now the states and counties (and Independent Republics) across the nation have to deal with these situations. As a whole the Jury was pretty perturbed that we had to give up our time to decide this matter when they all should be back in their home countries figuring out why there is no construction going on there. We also felt confident that the men had worked for a month with no pay and that wasn't right.
Verdict: It was obvious that the defendant was a snake who took advantage of both our lax immigration enforcement and the vulnerability of the illiterate aliens who would work for cash and without the protections of a normal payroll system.
He owed them all what they said and the judge upped that to $7500 each (court maximum).
Result: Because he is a snake and makes up companies at least once a year to avoid detection, probably has one or more false SSNs and lives out of state, he will continue his life as normal. The Plaintiffs lawyer will try to find some of his assets or accounts to have them garnished but will in all likelihood never receive a dime for his clients. In other words - six Citizens, a lawyer, judge , clerk, records people and support personnel spent hours, some of them days to try a case in which there is no result.
The Independent Republic of Horry County sent an invitation for me to apply my wisdom to the disputes between my fellow
Case one: Four (admittedly) illegal aliens contended that they worked for an (alleged) illegal alien for four weeks on a construction project at the Market Commons in Myrtle Beach. They said the defendant never paid them for this work. They also said that there were ten other men that all worked on the same building and lived in the same trailer (that the defendant provided).
14 men+ 1 trailer+no running water or electricity = nothing unusual.
They didn't complain about the living conditions, just the lack of pay.
The defendant (M*^@$#)admitted that all of this was true but said that he worked for a company called M&M Construction owned by Silvia M$#^^%&*#$% and was not responsible. He never explained who the other M in M&M was. He also failed to explain that his business card for his own company, M*^@$# Framing had the same phone number that was used to open the bank account for M&M.
On cross we found out that M*^@$# shared a child and address with M$#^^%&*#$% .
Then he tried to say he fired them because they were drunk all the time. For a month.
Deliberation: Since the Federl Gubmint won't do their job, now the states and counties (and Independent Republics) across the nation have to deal with these situations. As a whole the Jury was pretty perturbed that we had to give up our time to decide this matter when they all should be back in their home countries figuring out why there is no construction going on there. We also felt confident that the men had worked for a month with no pay and that wasn't right.
Verdict: It was obvious that the defendant was a snake who took advantage of both our lax immigration enforcement and the vulnerability of the illiterate aliens who would work for cash and without the protections of a normal payroll system.
He owed them all what they said and the judge upped that to $7500 each (court maximum).
Result: Because he is a snake and makes up companies at least once a year to avoid detection, probably has one or more false SSNs and lives out of state, he will continue his life as normal. The Plaintiffs lawyer will try to find some of his assets or accounts to have them garnished but will in all likelihood never receive a dime for his clients. In other words - six Citizens, a lawyer, judge , clerk, records people and support personnel spent hours, some of them days to try a case in which there is no result.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Where, oh where has my li'l dinghy gone?
Oh where oh where could it be?
OK, so we have just realized that 14 minutes worth of macramé has gone to the dogs. back up come the binoculars to capture the essence of Brian's conundrum sinking in to his fuzzy head.
It wasn't long before he came ambling down the dock, a bounce in his step and his tank top flailing away. When he got to the place where the dinghy had been a huge, nervous smile spread across his melon. This was better than candid camera!
Brian casually looked from one end of the dock to another, hoping that his extremely fragile reality was not finally beginning to crumble. He peered over to us but we were concealed beneath the bimini and completely out of earshot anyway, so there was nothing we could do - except roll around the deck in fits of hilarity.
Brian actually worked pretty good in a crisis situation. He walked out to the fuel pumps at the end of the dock and asked if they had seen the dinghy (I can only suppose, we actually have no idea what the conversation was). We were waiting for him to call over on the radio but I think he was too embarrassed (or too intimidated by the electronics involved) to contact us.
He stayed in the fuel hut for quite a while. eventually he was escorted down the dock by a West Indian in a red t-shirt. The red t-shirt kept making motions with his hands which conveyed "Ihave no idea where it is. No, I haven't seen anyone leaving the island in a dinghy with a greeeeen moata!"
Then the red t-shirt pointed across the bay to the dinghy's new position. "is thaat ya booat, mon?" his fingers asked.
Brian looked and turned back to the red t-shirt. "How could that be my boat? I'm ... I'm sure that....I mean... I know i didn't park it there. I guess it could be my boat but i ... i tied that thing up over here" he must have said.
After more arm waiving by red and more rocking by Brian he finally walked along the beach in front of Pusser's to the other dock. he inspected the dingy, not wanting to be locked in a third world jail for pilfering a boat which wasn't his.
After deciding that "well it looks like our dingy... I mean it has that SeaBreeze on the side there and that ... I think I recall that was the name of the company we rented the boat from.... or was it Caribbean Travel Network? I seem to remember that when I was trying to get a train ticket to the Caribbean that Chesty gave me a number to a woman... I think I remember her name was Rena.... I wonder what she looked like?... let's see Caribbean Travel Network was the place we got the tickets... yeah, OK then I guess SeaBreeze was the company we got that boat from.
Well, lets see... it has got the green motor and I remember I cranked it up and that motor was green....."
He looked around and no one was chasing after him so he must have assumed it was our boat.
Now how would he let the rope go and crank the motor without drifting out to sea?
He did return and later that evening we found out that the young sailor tying the dinghy up earlier was in fact Roe's brother Pete. - he had seen Brian come to the dock and thought it would be a neat trick. He and Will had watched from the deck of Pusser's with the entire restaurant and been laughing just as hard as we were.
Guilt finally forced me to tell Brian the truth, 3 days after we returned home.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Brians Dinghy trip.
Today we relive Brian's dinghy expedition!
It's day 12 - we have sailed from Cooper Island to Leverick Bay on Virgin Gorda. The crew has gone ashore for supplies and returned minus the captain (still Roe- no mutiny as of yet) who is under a palm tree reading Don't Stop the Carnival.
After a couple hours the radio crackles to life. The skipper needs a dinghy ride back to the boat. I look at Brian and give the command, "fire up the dinghy - the skip needs you, miboy"
Brian is a "special" tenant of ours and by this time in the trip we have grown accustomed to his bark-like noises, abnormal meal habits, strange hygiene habits, lack of clothing, habit of slapping his chest, Flailing himself with a t-shirt like a cow shooing flies, generally his overall weird behavior.
But the one thing that no one could accept was his indecision. When we said "Brian, pull the red rope" he would look at it and say "well... This one is kinda white with red stripes... I mean I could pull this one but I'm not really sure its red or..."
then he sort of rocks a little bit looking for approval.
"pull in the *&#$ rope!"
He puts his hands gingerly on the rope and stares at the winch around which it should be wound.
"Sit over there! #$@%%^&*&&*^^%$!"
Then someone would do his job as he fidgeted in his seat.
Now he is faced with being alone in a 12 foot boat (with an engine that stalls occasionally) in a harbor where the wind is lightly puffing out to sea. His mind is reeling with possible tragedies.
"Get in the dingy and go get Roe. You've driven the dingy with Jack in it. You know what to do. Get in and I'll untie you when you get it cranked."
"Ted - do you want to go with me?"
"Get in and go. It's right there - 200 yards. You swam that far the other day!"
Rock, rock, rock. Nervous grin. Flail, flail.
"I'll go" said Ted, fearing that his fraternity brother would die of starvation on the dock of a four star resort waiting for rescue.
They get in and, with Ted acting as ballast, they motor ashore.
As the dinghy comes back to the TI-COYO , Roe is standing at the bow (like Ponce de Leon in search of the fabled fountain) and Ted is sitting at attention (big smile on his face) on the center seat as Brian maneuvers the "greeeen moata dinghy" to the stern of the TI-COYO.
I stand to offer any assistance they may need and Roe holds up a foreboding hand. "Brian is doing this on his own - no help from anyone"
He successfully gets to the back of the TI-COYO and all passengers deboat (like how the stewardess has you "deplane"). Congratulations are offered to Brian and everybody settles down to a nice lunch of beans and rice.
Suddenly Roe “remembers” that he has forgotten bait and asks Brian to go back to the store and buy some.
Then he tells Brian to go get some bait.
Then he orders Brian to go get some bait.
"You've done it several times, I won't accept no as an answer!"
Brian slowly makes his way into the dinghy and as he turns around to ask (for the nine hundred and fourteenth time) how to start the engine, Roe tossed him the painter and let him drift.
A look of panic came across his face and he couldn't decide whether to :
1. Jump out of the dinghy and swim for the boat hoping that a giant tuna with rabies didn't devour him on the way.
2. Try to throw the line back to Roe so he could hold on to it as he took 45 minutes to crank the motor.
3. Crank the motor and go to shore.
4. Just sit there until he reached Havana where Cuban whores would drag him ashore and fulfill his wildest dreams while sending him straight to hell for fornication.
We got the binoculars out and watched as Brian drifted off into history. There was the very real possibility that the tide would pull him across Blunder Bay and through over the flats by Anguilla point. The current would no doubt take him at 3 knots right into the Drake Passage. It could be days before we see him. if ever.
The wind was our hero that day. It blew from the north and carried Brian straight into the boulders of Blunder Bay. As he neared the rocky shore, some 35 minutes after drifting of our stern, he picked up an oar and used it to fend off the rocks. When he finally stopped he was a quarter mile from the nearest place to safely beach. We had anticipated him wading in three feet of water over the reef to the west Leverick dock.
He surprised us all and cranked the motor. He made it safely past the west dock over to the tie up by the fuel dock. After arriving he spent the next 14 minutes tying the vessel up. Then he rechecked his knot; looked at how the other dingies were tied; double checked his knot making sure that a hurricane wouldn't blow it away as he went to the market; looked around to ensure no pirates were about; checked the sky for coming hurricanes; checked his knot; smiled, having full assurance that he had done it with no disasters.
As he walked off to the store he swatted himself on the back with his tank top repeatedly. He says it makes him feel “normal”.
A few minutes passed and I noticed the ease with which some young sailor secured his dingy to a different dock, some hundred yards away - funny how I didn't notice him coming into the harbor.
Another ten minutes passed. Brian sure was taking his time getting bait.
Then Roe, who had been staring intently at the dock, asked "where's the dinghy?"
A quick search affirmed it was not where Brian had left it. An easy look to the west dock confirmed my suspicion that whoever had tied that dinghy hadn't come into the harbor with it. It was our dinghy – somehow it had come undone and drifted across the harbor!
to be continued…
It's day 12 - we have sailed from Cooper Island to Leverick Bay on Virgin Gorda. The crew has gone ashore for supplies and returned minus the captain (still Roe- no mutiny as of yet) who is under a palm tree reading Don't Stop the Carnival.
After a couple hours the radio crackles to life. The skipper needs a dinghy ride back to the boat. I look at Brian and give the command, "fire up the dinghy - the skip needs you, miboy"
Brian is a "special" tenant of ours and by this time in the trip we have grown accustomed to his bark-like noises, abnormal meal habits, strange hygiene habits, lack of clothing, habit of slapping his chest, Flailing himself with a t-shirt like a cow shooing flies, generally his overall weird behavior.
But the one thing that no one could accept was his indecision. When we said "Brian, pull the red rope" he would look at it and say "well... This one is kinda white with red stripes... I mean I could pull this one but I'm not really sure its red or..."
then he sort of rocks a little bit looking for approval.
"pull in the *&#$ rope!"
He puts his hands gingerly on the rope and stares at the winch around which it should be wound.
"Sit over there! #$@%%^&*&&*^^%$!"
Then someone would do his job as he fidgeted in his seat.
Now he is faced with being alone in a 12 foot boat (with an engine that stalls occasionally) in a harbor where the wind is lightly puffing out to sea. His mind is reeling with possible tragedies.
"Get in the dingy and go get Roe. You've driven the dingy with Jack in it. You know what to do. Get in and I'll untie you when you get it cranked."
"Ted - do you want to go with me?"
"Get in and go. It's right there - 200 yards. You swam that far the other day!"
Rock, rock, rock. Nervous grin. Flail, flail.
"I'll go" said Ted, fearing that his fraternity brother would die of starvation on the dock of a four star resort waiting for rescue.
They get in and, with Ted acting as ballast, they motor ashore.
As the dinghy comes back to the TI-COYO , Roe is standing at the bow (like Ponce de Leon in search of the fabled fountain) and Ted is sitting at attention (big smile on his face) on the center seat as Brian maneuvers the "greeeen moata dinghy" to the stern of the TI-COYO.
I stand to offer any assistance they may need and Roe holds up a foreboding hand. "Brian is doing this on his own - no help from anyone"
He successfully gets to the back of the TI-COYO and all passengers deboat (like how the stewardess has you "deplane"). Congratulations are offered to Brian and everybody settles down to a nice lunch of beans and rice.
Suddenly Roe “remembers” that he has forgotten bait and asks Brian to go back to the store and buy some.
Then he tells Brian to go get some bait.
Then he orders Brian to go get some bait.
"You've done it several times, I won't accept no as an answer!"
Brian slowly makes his way into the dinghy and as he turns around to ask (for the nine hundred and fourteenth time) how to start the engine, Roe tossed him the painter and let him drift.
A look of panic came across his face and he couldn't decide whether to :
1. Jump out of the dinghy and swim for the boat hoping that a giant tuna with rabies didn't devour him on the way.
2. Try to throw the line back to Roe so he could hold on to it as he took 45 minutes to crank the motor.
3. Crank the motor and go to shore.
4. Just sit there until he reached Havana where Cuban whores would drag him ashore and fulfill his wildest dreams while sending him straight to hell for fornication.
We got the binoculars out and watched as Brian drifted off into history. There was the very real possibility that the tide would pull him across Blunder Bay and through over the flats by Anguilla point. The current would no doubt take him at 3 knots right into the Drake Passage. It could be days before we see him. if ever.
The wind was our hero that day. It blew from the north and carried Brian straight into the boulders of Blunder Bay. As he neared the rocky shore, some 35 minutes after drifting of our stern, he picked up an oar and used it to fend off the rocks. When he finally stopped he was a quarter mile from the nearest place to safely beach. We had anticipated him wading in three feet of water over the reef to the west Leverick dock.
He surprised us all and cranked the motor. He made it safely past the west dock over to the tie up by the fuel dock. After arriving he spent the next 14 minutes tying the vessel up. Then he rechecked his knot; looked at how the other dingies were tied; double checked his knot making sure that a hurricane wouldn't blow it away as he went to the market; looked around to ensure no pirates were about; checked the sky for coming hurricanes; checked his knot; smiled, having full assurance that he had done it with no disasters.
As he walked off to the store he swatted himself on the back with his tank top repeatedly. He says it makes him feel “normal”.
A few minutes passed and I noticed the ease with which some young sailor secured his dingy to a different dock, some hundred yards away - funny how I didn't notice him coming into the harbor.
Another ten minutes passed. Brian sure was taking his time getting bait.
Then Roe, who had been staring intently at the dock, asked "where's the dinghy?"
A quick search affirmed it was not where Brian had left it. An easy look to the west dock confirmed my suspicion that whoever had tied that dinghy hadn't come into the harbor with it. It was our dinghy – somehow it had come undone and drifted across the harbor!
to be continued…
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