People learn how to behave when they are youngsters. There are inside voices and outside voices. Behavior in public verses playing in your backyard. What ills me most is the people that have children running about and screaming in the Courthouse hallways. These will be the same children that will be in juvenile court and then later in adult court only to be followed by institutionalization. It is a constant generational rite of passage to continue to burden our doors.
Today I watched as a mother with her four two-legged welfare checks sat in the civil filing room irritating everyone around them and disrupting business. The middle child clearly knew what he was doing, yet purposely and continuously dinged the clerks bell. It was not just any clerks bell but one at the handicapped clerks' window opposite the window his mother was. So as he dinged and dinged the bell, and the clerk had to get up from the back of the office and come up to the window. Every time she came to the window, there was no one. The delinquent was playing ding and ditch with the clerk. Every time I glared at the mother she did nothing about it. In fact, she let him do it over and over again. It got to the point that the bell was irritating me and I finally walked over, picked up the bell, and took it. I decided that I would hold onto the bell and prevent any further disturbance. This would have been a simple thing in an otherwise respectful society, but not the ghetto baby mama drama in Court. Not a chance for simple normalcy here.
The kid then tried to play it and said, "She took the bell away from me." The kid was about 8 years old and had already likely seen enough in his life to desensitize anyone so I was not falling for that. The mother started lunging and screaming at me. Then waving her nine inch curved fortune teller nails at me escalates her voice with, "Byatch, you talked to my child?" I was not in the mood. Not in the mood to hold my tongue. Today was not the day and if you are coming in my Courthouse that I pay my tax dollars for, then you are going to hear it from me.
And from there the drama on Monday in the Courthouse began. Simply said.
No, I had not spoken to her child, but since she opened the door. . . . I calmly told the mother that it was not the child's bell and that if she had been paying attention to her child, instead of talking on her cell phone in a restricted cell area that she would have seen what he was doing. Of course with irrational people, being calm just agitates them more. She then started yelling for me to give her the bell for her kid to continue the shenanigans. I looked her straight in the eye as though I was looking at Mike Tyson and waiting for him to take a bite out of me. I did not flinch. She had met her match today. I guess I won the stare down because she started screaming, "you don't be knowin' who yewd be messin with." Then she mumbles to herself something to the effect of "no man be likin' that borin byatch with no flaver." Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and roll your eyes when they are closed in your pause; I question why in the calorie counter books they do not have an entry for how many calories you burn biting your tongue and being exhausted to your wits end.
So she decides to start screaming for security. That always humors me. When security comes they all are chummy with me, and that will send her off even more. The security guy comes but he is not a marshal, he is a rental guard in a blue polyester jacket that would likely melt on a sunny day. He has no clue what he is doing and takes the time to listen to the blah blah blah that she claims makes sense. After he pretends to listen to her, he then attempts to talk to me. He cannot hear anything he is trying to say, let alone a response from me, because of her constant babbling and input from across the room.
Finally, resolve comes. The clerk comes from behind the window and I give her the bell. I explain to her that I am holding the bell because it was the condoned behavior by the mother allowing her child to aggravate her and everyone else in the room. She has a thankful yet annoyed look knowing that is the reason she had gotten up to a ghost window some seven or eight times. Immediately and almost on cue, the complainant starts in again. Now she is yelling at both of us.
She is trying to file a civil protective order against a girl that is as she puts it, "messin with her man." She is so irrational that she is trying to use the court system to give a civil protective order that allows her to determine whether "her man" can see anyone but her. It is pretty clear why he does not want to be around her.
The clerk denies her application. She is furious and then she starts going off on another tangent. She begins screaming, of course, at me. "You betta be knowin dat yewd be how da not be tellin peeples kidz shitz." I had to pause and attempt to decipher that one. She clearly did not understand, "Pardon me." Instead she yells, "Bitch don't yewd be tellin my kidz what to do. I be raizin dem juz wite."
The only response I have to this is quite simple. Honest. True. "If you were raising your kids at all, you would not be in this building. From the looks of the other papers in your hand, and your child down in Juvenile Court, it appears that you are relying on the government to do it for you." This infuriates her and she screams, "Nobod' be tellin me how to bringz up my kids byatch. " I love how some people feel the need to clutter a simple statement with unnecessary words.
When I choose not to have a response to her unnecessary comment she gets more infuriated. The calmer I am the more out of control she behaves; not to mention her children are watching. As always, never a dull moment in the courthouse. When she realizes people are looking at her as though she has lost her mind and she knows that marshals are coming, she grabs her child by the hood and pulls him to follow her. She exits bragging to her children, "You see dat is how ya shows dem whooz in control."
