Tyler told me I was crazy to think I needed to leave the house at 645am in order to make it to Denton before 8am, but more often than not, I assume wrong, traffic gets the best of me and I'm late for something important. And while that wasn't the case today, leaving the house at sun up was a bit much and I arrived at 730am. Luckily, the building was already open so I went in, left my nail file with the guards because I only removed my knife, and headed to the 4th floor. Around 745 I stopped a woman coming out of one of the court offices and asked if I was right to be just standing around because I'd hate to assume wrong and waste all that time. She said that no one would be in the offices until 8am and that I was right to be standing near my courtroom. So I stayed, and a few other people joined me as it got closer to 8, then finally at 805 the baliff unlocked the doors and I'm surprised I didn't hit him in the face with the door because I was so determined to get in & out in a timely manner. I handed him the paperwork the District Clerk handed me last week and he gave me the sheet with the speech I was to say to the judge when he called me.
I sat down in the front row of the courtroom at 808 and waited as the room slowly filled, freezing my ass off the entire time. Finally, at 848 (I was one of the few who obeyed the "CELL PHONES MUST BE TURNED OFF" rule so I was counting the minutes out of boredom and impatience) the judge leisurely walks in and gets situated before saying "Parker...did you file with the District Clerk?" to which I answered "Yes" and he shot back that there was no cause # on my form, so I needed to go back downstairs and find that out.
Pissed, I squashed into the elevator with 12 other people, wait in line, and am shown my cause # on my receipt from filing the paperwork the prior week, only it's not labeled "Cause #" it's labeled "Reference #" and I was never instructed that these were one in the same, or that I needed to fill it in on the form for the judge. Luckily she does tell me that after I get my form signed, that I need to go to the Library on the 2nd floor to make a copy of the paperwork because she cannot provide that for me when I return to file.
Naively thinking that once I get back to the 4th floor courtroom, I'll be called next, I hand the bailiff my papers and overhear the judge respond "Okay, I'll get to her at the end". At this point, it's 910 and I'm fuming. Luckily, he seemed to be going through the list in a timely manner so I only had to wait about 10 minutes. This time I at least make it past the bar and up to the judge's seat, but when he goes to find my file in the system, it doesn't pull up. I showed him the typed receipt from the DC and verifies they're the same, but it's still not pulling anything up. He tells the bailiff to let me out the side door to go see the Court Administrator to see if she can figure out what's going on. She's on a phone call, so I wait another 4 minutes, then she tells me that the DC gave me the wrong number and I don't even need a hearing (AWESOME), but since I'm already there, take the correct number back to the judge and have him sign the form.
I enter the courtroom for a THIRD time, hand the papers to the bailiff explaining the problem with the number, and am, again, at the bottom of the list. At last, he calls out "Hopefully the third time's a charm....Parker" and luckily, my information comes up, he swears me in, I give my court appointed speech with all my information inserted, as instructed, he says ok, signs the form and shakes my hand while saying "Let me be the first to call you Mrs Thomas" and hands over my papers to file with the ever-bright DC. I was so irritated with him wasting my time after I'd done everything in my knowledge and power to make the most of it, that I really hated accepting the handshake and saying "Thank you", but I bit the bullet and did it anyways.
I paid the $.50 for my copy of the forms and took it to the DC, she gave me a certified copy and not until after I retrieved my nail file and left the premises did I realized that if I'd made more copies I could have more certified copies, which made me even more angry that the DC didn't explain that to me when she was telling me to make copies, as I just thought she meant copies for my own records. I will need certified copies to change all my legal forms and I'm not sure if/when they'll be returned to me, so that probably means there will be more fun little trips to Denton in my future.
