Courthouse Blues

The Worcester Courthouse does not allow cell phones for us common plebs. Of course, information about this is very limited on their website and subsequent Google searches. The best information I could find was that one could drop their cell phones off at the Sheriffs office across the street for a dollar fee.

Of course, Chelsea gave me a number to call for the Sheriff's office and I neglected to call it, given my anxiety over making some phone calls.  I can't really explain it, but some phone calls just lock me up like a deer in headlights. A gun pointed at my head wouldn't be able to make me squeak out the words.

But I knew in my heart of hearts that if the courthouse has a no cellphone policy, that they would have to have a system in place for us poor plebs who don't have cars and rely on Uber and Lyft to deal with their mobile devices, so I counted on that and left an hour earlier than the 8:30am scheduled court session.

When arriving to the Sheriff's office there is a clear sign on their door stating that they do NOT hold onto cell phones. Lovely.  So I cross the street to the courthouse and make my way inside to ask the security guards manning the metal detectors where I need to leave my phone.

As the constable's office, they say.. which is also across the street a little further down. Ok, cool.

Problem is:  The constable's office is locked with a sign posted stating that they do not open until 8:30am, the exact time of our hearing.

I make my way back outside and I see Chelsea across the street being walked slowly over icy patches with assistance from her fiance. 

Chelsea's fiance seems like a decent enough bloke, but whatever horror stories she told him about me must have resonated. The dude simply refuses to meet me face to face.  Thus, I can't just run across the street to explain the situation to her, I have to wait until he walks her to the door and leave.  Then I head over and fill her in on the situation.

Despite my anxiety issues, I'm feeling ok with waiting a little bit. I figure she can go on ahead inside while I wait at the constable's office to leave my cell phone off, as she;s leaving hers with her fiance who'll be waiting in a nearby cafe. 

Unfortunately, she freaks out at this concept and is adamant that the court will not wait even 10 seconds for me to get there, despite the fact that this cell phone drop-off system is on THEY implemented ... so we have to have her fiance hold onto my phone. To do this, I have to go hide so he can't see me while she meets up with him - because he's clearly a rational adult. (you'd think that the fact that I'm meeting her for a DIVORCE would be enough reassurance for the guy that I'm not his fucking competition... but whatever, man!)

Fine. Phone issue down. Let's get this court shit over with shall we?

So we get up to our courtroom to find it locked, so we sit on a bench outside and wait. And wait. And wait.

Somewhere after 9am (we had no cellphones to check time) the court finally opens, and a clerk pokes her head out and calls in a couple sitting next to us.  OK, so it appears that they call people in individually, I noted. 

But that was a mistake that cost us over two hours of excruciating waiting on those marble benches. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And looking at the 3rd floor balcony in front of me and thinking It would be a lot less painful to just leap off that fucking rail than waiting one more goddamned minute...

With no signs indicating anything and no information desk to ask, the only options we had were to wait or to risk walking into a courtroom where an active trial is taking place.  My anxiety can't handle that shit.. and it was two hours before Chelsea was able to flag down a passing pair of security guards to ask them, and of course... we were supposed to go right in and sit inside the courtroom watching other cases until ours was called.

Insert forehead slap here.

So after all that, we just walk in and sit down... and within moments we're asked to identify ourselves and then get called to the front.  Ten minutes of standard yes and no questions later, and we were sent to a back room to initial and correct some stuff on our paperwork.... and that's that.  Within 30 days they'll send us some paperwork that makes it official - but for all intents and purposes: I'm now a single man.