I
borrowed Rita's #typewriter, a heavy, old clunker of a machine. I had to type out the #eviction #petition I’d bought
earlier at the legal supply store, and my own typewriter was broken. (Gives you an idea of when this whole #landlord
saga took place!!)
Normally
I’d type the petition at the office during my free time, but seeing as I was currently
the sole secretary/paralegal/Girl Friday for five attorneys – the other
secretaries being either out sick or at
the track gambling on the horses – I was slightly short of a spare moment.
Anyway,
I needed to work out what I wanted to say, and from past experience it might take a few attempts for me to get it right. I made ten copies of
the blank petition just in case.
I
was so glad I did!
I
sat down at the dining room table, unloaded the clunker, and turned it on. It came to life with an asthmatic wheeze and chuntered to
itself for a while before settling down to a steady chug-chug.
I
inserted the first petition, began to type, and instantly made my first
mistake.
"Damn
it! No corrector ribbon!" I ripped the sheet of paper out of the machine.
Faced
with the lack of correction tape and visions of looming typos as a result, I instantly
became a gibbering wreck. My fingers
hovered tremblingly over the keys for several seconds before plucking up the
courage to press one. My typing speed
plummeted from eighty to twenty as my eyes darted nervously back and forth,
keeping an eagle eye out for a fingertip about to inadvertently hit the wrong key.
I
rolled the second petition into the clunker and began again to type, oh so
carefully. The ribbon was old because no
one had used the typewriter for ages. Thus the inked letters it produced
came out so faint as to be almost invisible. I had to type everything twice to make the words bold enough to read, thus
doubling the risk of making a mistake.
Despite
my double-striking each character with a vengeance, everything went well until the
carriage approached the far right-hand side of the form. Readers of this blog, who were alive in the typewriter age, will know that a warning bell is supposed
to sound when the typewriter carriage approaches the right margin. This reminds
the typist that it's time to move down to the next line. Well, Rita’s old clunker did not sound the warning
bell. Instead, it suddenly decided it had reached its self-determined right margin
and would go no farther. It then proceeded to type the next few characters on top of one another, creating an inky, black mess.
"Dammit!"
I groaned again and yanked that page out too.
This
time I inserted the petition at the far left side of the carriage roller in
order to extend my typing area. I’d learned one thing, though: don’t fill in the Court and party information at the beginning. Go straight to the meaty "Description
of Facts" and fill in the rest later.
I
stewed over the wording for the description and actually managed to type out the
whole thing without a mistake. However, on reading it over, I decided I didn’t
like it and yanked the page out.
I
began again for the fourth time. This
time I liked the new wording but made a mistake somewhere near the bottom.
"Dammit,"
came the ubiquitous explosion. "I
need Whiteout!" (i.e. Typex, Liquid Paper, correction fluid ...)
I
ransacked Wim's desk, but to no avail: no Whiteout to be found. Where else could I look?
Ah, hah! I distinctly remembered buying some for the kids’ school supplies.
Andrea
and Bronwyn were peacefully engaged in watching television in their basement playroom
when the door at the top of the stairs burst open, and their mother erupted
onto the scene.
Bronwyn looked up as I fixed her with my feverish gaze.
"Whiteout?"
I gargled incoherently.
She
shrugged a shoulder, not the least bit perturbed at the sight of her mom having one
of her manic fits.
"All
dried up," she replied nonchalantly before turning her attention back to
the TV.
"Andrea?"
I pleaded. My other daughter didn’t even bother looking my way as she shrugged both her shoulders.
"Dunno,"
she drawled around a mouthful of braces and forbidden chewing gum.
I
knew it was no use. From past
experience, the likelihood of finding decent Whiteout in the various old pencil
cases scattered about the place was next to none. I pawed halfheartedly through the remnants of
at least three-years’ worth of blunt pencils, half-melted Crayolas -- both in and out of their wrappers -- dried up felt-tip pens without their tops
on, and sharpener-shavings, before giving up the search.
"Thanks
so much for your help. Like I'm
doing something important here!" I pouted and stomped up the stairs in frustration.
I
gloomily surveyed my dining room table. It was littered with six or seven
crumpled balls of petition. "This
is ridiculous," I told myself sternly.
"You’ve been slaving over this thing for a whole hour. Just do it!"
Right. I sat down and typed on a scrap piece of
paper exactly what I wanted to say in the Description of Facts. And what do you
know? Not one typo, apart from some crossings-out
where I changed my mind.
I
started on a new petition, made a couple of mistakes, but to hell with it.
I
finally finished typing and rolled the form out of the clunker. Now for the signature. Oh, no! It had to be notarized. Although I myself was a notary public, #notaries aren’t permitted to #notarize their own signatures, and Wim was to file the petition the next morning in City Court.
What to do?
Wild
thoughts of driving across town to Rita’s house raced through my head. It was late though, and her notary stamp was
probably at the office.
I
considered going to work early in the morning in the hope that an attorney
would be present to notarize my signature. Early enough that I could deliver the
petition back home to Wim and return to work by nine o’clock. No. With travel
time, I’d have to get to the office really
early, and there was no guarantee of an attorney being there.
I
could get it notarized at a bank, but banks only open at nine o'clock. I’d be late for work and, as I mentioned before, we
were short-staffed that week.
I
searched the form for a way out of my predicament and, voila, there was a check box for permitting "Agent of Petitioner" to file the petition. I checked it. Now my "agent" Wim could sign it before a notary public at City Hall and file it with the Clerk.
I
set off for the office the next morning in a hopeful mood. Not too hopeful, mind you.
The plan was for Wim to first stop by the Schemmerhorn #building inspector's office to pick up the report of code violations and try to talk him into declaring the upstairs apartment unfit for human
habitation due to the water leak. If that failed, he would go ahead and sign and file the petition to evict Kristina.
Twelve o'clock struck. Wim strode into my office like a stick insect atop bony legs four feet long.
"Did
you get the report?" I asked.
"Yah,
but the inspector wasn't in so I couldn't talk to him." My heart sank as Wim waved a piece of paper at me. It looked
suspiciously like my original petition.
"They
wouldn't accept my signature," he said.
I
groaned. Naturally I’d left my folder of blank petitions at home.
"Can
you white out my signature and put yours there instead?” Wim suggested. “Get it
notarized and I'll take it back to Schemmerhorn right now."
While he stepped outside for a smoke, I whited out his signature, photocopied the
petition, and signed my name. Rita notarized it. Wim returned soon after amidst a haze of just-exhaled cigarette smoke. He
collected the petition and left.
I crossed my thumbs and returned to work.
