Courthouse

Signed papers at the County Courthouse today. I'd rather have a root canal. Parking. Really? Is there anyplace that will allow a citizen due justice and the ability to get to IT without paying astronomical parking, a walk of a thousand leagues, or a convoluted journey three blocks over and one East? No.

My miasma started in 1996 when I was a struggling single mother of one trying to make ends meet in any fashion I could. I did arts and crafts shows. I worked a 9 to 5. I read cards. Let me explain. I displayed 90 percent extraordinaire fashions coupled with fabric art items. It was a good mix encouraged by my friend, Carol Gray.

I had just missed a sale that would have meant the difference between a pair of shoes and grocery money for the week for my still growing son. A man popped into my booth and offered me an out - accept credit cards, do it online and smile all the way to the bank. Trouble was, the company he represented had their heritage in the carpetbaggers of the post Civil War diaspora.

They leased me a machine that did not work, refused to fix it and sued me when I threatened to discontinue payments. I had a lien put against my old house.

Fast forward to last year - 2006. I'm trying to settle some realty issues and the lien comes up. I go online and find that the buggers are the worst of the worst! Their M.O. - to scoop in the stupid, sue their arses seven states away and then register a lien, knowing that the majority of the gullible will realize that money is of the essence.

Arrive the State Attorneys General from several states - the same embattled foes of today - who say that the company LEASECOMM has and had practiced unfair business miens. They were nasty and at fault. You can find the RICO findings online. I'm too tired to give them. So.

I disputed the lien. Filed for a Motion to Dismiss, and had to go to the Courthouse to sign papers. I call back Monday. I fought traffic. I got a parking spot. I'm hopefull.

On the way home, I passed one of those skeletons of businesses that open on a bad corner with high hopes. No one came. You know what I'm talking here. There are places on the Earth that no one needs to develop, put money into, dream and hope or strive. There are places that just need to be left fallow.

They can be fantasmagorically interesting in their decor. They can have money dumped into them from whatever source. There can be kleig lights and promotion campaigns and people putting flyers all over the city. But. Whatever starts there dies. And withers. No matter the involment or the enthusiasm.

I've seen these spots in many cities in every state of the Union (and some foreign) that I've visited. They are dead. Decapitated. gone from the cellular on down. I don't know what it would take to ennervate these spots. Maybe there's not enough energy on the face of the Earth. Maybe they are born dead.

So, Sign your papers and struggle with the nomenclature of law, the buggaboos and aggravati0ons of somehting else. But never bet on a dead horse that grows on a lot where weeds struggle. You know the ones.