"...and the judge wasn't gonna look at the 27 8x10 color pictures..."

Well, just when I thought things couldn't get much stupider, they did... and then got much better.

I got up early yesterday to buff the house up for the appraiser, who was supposed to show up at 10. A 9:30, I was surprised to see two sheriff's cars show up outside. After explaining that they were there to serve me with court papers, they handed me a rather large and familiarly-badly-lettered district court form. Avery had gone and filed for a peace order, intended to force me to let him back into the barn, keep me OUT of my own barn, as well as keep me away from him. Stupidly, though, the hearing on his application to the court was in exactly 45 minutes. In Hagerstown.

I went back inside (after thanking the very patient deputies) and went back inside to do a quick shower. I made it to Hagerstown just in time, and went in, nicely dressed, and sat down to wait to be called. Avery was there, looking nervously around. One of his "friends" was there, a woman who I've seen bring him things in the past.

After a while, they called us up. I could kind of see hwo things were going to go from the moment the judge attempted (and failed) to pronounce Avery's goofy made-up name. You could almost see him shaking his head, like, "why do I get this stuff so early in the morning?"

Anyway, Avery said his piece, I said my piece. The judge was getting rather annoyed by Avery's tendency to want to tell The History Of The World, Part One, rather than simply answer the damn question. Judges really hate that sort of thing, and I know it. Just answer the questions, and shut the hell up. Avery had hauled along a bagful of photographs (the judge didn't bother looking at them), and all sorts of other crap which also was ignored.

It took the judge exactly thirty seconds to deny Avery's request for a peace order. Avery looked crestfallen, and acted like he wanted to explain and explain, but the judge was already on his way out of the court. Sorry, Avery.

Out in the hall, I talked to Avery one more time, telling him that if he could agree to a date when he could show up with enough help and transportation to clear the rest of his stuff out, I was all for it, but that he wouldn't be allowed to be at my place unsupervised. This was completely unacceptable to Avery, who was mumbling something about trying to "file criminal charges" against me. I walked away after telling him, "by the way, the state highway crew came and hauled all your shit away yesterday morning."

Sometimes the legal system actually works.

I went to work.

This afternoon, I did some checking, and Avery had removed the last of the stuff in the upstairs area of the barn, and whatever was left down by the highway.

He's gone!

Karmic balance has been restored to the valley.