I received a call from my dad last Monday advising me that I had received a legal document from the State of New Jersey. Now this has been going on for quite some time, because my mother and I have the same name as well as middle initial it seams that my most important mail gets forwarded to my parent’s home in Mississippi. Dad starts giving me the speech as to why I shouldn't have changed my name and how things would only get worse as I got older. If you don't change the subject dad can go further than the energizer bunny and forget what the actual rant was about. I say rant because he always closes out by with "I am not mad at you, I am mad at the post office" He finally tells me mom will send the letter by ups until I beg him to open it. Uh I can't read it. So for 3 full days I wait and I wait for the letter to come in and nothing. I call my dad and grandma’s nurse tells me in the nicest southern drawl that the letter was sitting in the kitchen after being returned. Now I lose it. I'm driving past a golf course with the convertible down and scream as loud as I can, look over and see at least 12 golfers looking at me as if I have just driven on the green instead of screaming in the air. I have no choice now but to call the township and find out if I need to be in court. Now this is the same township whose officers have come to my house well over 20 times and done nothing, so I am already preparing myself for the worse. The secretary answers and I explain my situation and she answers with as much attitude that you would not expect "well if you look at your summons it has it on there!" I breathe and breathe and breathe before I answer that I don’t have the summons and if she would look it up it would help. She starts slamming the keyboards and finally tells me that the summons is for Mike Howard and only Mike Howard.

Fast forward to the following day...court day. I signed harassment complaints almost 3 months earlier and while he had been served numerous times he never showed up. I remember looking at the floor and asking God to please put a judge that would see through Mr. Howard’s deceit and maybe force him to admit to himself as well as the judge that he had a problem. I will never know if the judge did read him the riot act or if he plead guilty, but either way something happened. Mr. Howard returned home that night and nothing. Not a peep, not a slam, not a sound. Now this is the day before the eviction and while I prayed he would not lose his temper in the house silence was a little scarier. The following day came and went with the hours ticking slowly. Just as I was about to give up hope and let the worse of the worse float in my mind the horizon of a white box truck crept in the corner of my bedroom window. Not only was he moving...he was throwing everything into the truck as fast as possible, with as little noise as possible.

I cried as quietly as I could into my pillow and gave thanks for this moment of freedom. It not only surprised me that I did not live with the snake with its neck cut off wildly thrashing until it realized it was dead, but he actually cleaned the room!

I have been to hell and back and learned several lessons the hard way