The Seven Deadly Sins: Hubris

With all the Is' dotted and Ts' crossed, the divorce proceeded quickly. Her lawyer assured her that they would be allocated the same family court judge, now they were on her books and she had a reputation for being very biased. The lawyer usually advised his male clients that went up against her, to give up and save their money. Knowing her vindictive plan was on track, that she would win and Dave would end up destitute, Laura relaxed. She wondered if Dave's pride would allow him to come crawling back, in which case she would be magnanimous, with conditions, or whether he would accept his pauperhood with bad grace.

Chapter 13

With her confidence restored, Laura strode into court, a month later. To be greeted by a worried looking lawyer. He pointed out a woman in a suit in the front row of the public gallery.

"See that woman? I went to law school with her. I heard she works in the federal Chief Justice's office now. There's something going on and I don't like it. He was clearly rattled and it infected Laura with nervousness.

The judge opened proceedings with the announcement that this was her last case, as she was taking early retirement. She certainly didn't seem to be happy with that. Then the lawyers started. Laura's opened with a counter to Dave's request that Laura be saddled with all the legal costs. He proposed that Laura paid Dave's and vice versa. John didn't agree to that, pointing out he was acting for Dave pro bono. It went downhill for Laura from then. John painted an accurate picture of the married couple and their relative merits as guardians. There was little Laura's lawyer could do, he seemed to be regretting putting his faith in the judges record and not preparing much factual evidence.

The case lasted all morning and was decidedly one sided. Again the judge gave her settlement there and then. With frequent glances at the suited woman in the audience, and speaking like she had a mouth full of broken glass, she said the facts of the case were straight forward and as the clear primary care giver, Dave was awarded custody. She even congratulated him on the generous offer he'd made Laura on the asset split and hoped he could do a good job raising them on the share he'd accepted. Her voice dripped with insincerity the whole time. Laura was so shocked, she missed the judge's final gavel rap.

She went back to her lonely one-bedroom apartment and wondered which bus had hit her. She couldn't wallow in self-pity though. She had a property settlement to attend. In anticipation of the financial judgement, she'd listed her old property for sale. Being a steep, awkward block, suitable only for a very specific house, the price she'd agreed to put on it was very low. Unless someone replicated her old house exactly, even the landscaping would have to go. It had been spectacular before, but only because of Dave's imaginative house design. This afternoon was the settlement time. She wanted to hand over the title deeds to the new owners herself, and wish them as much enjoyment from the property as she'd derived.

She was disappointed when the man that attended announced he was only an agent for the new owners. They would be along shortly if she wished to wait. When Laura saw David's car, leading four trucks carrying her old house, followed by a crane, she decided to leave.

At her new place, she looked at the meagre cheque in her hand, all the reward she had from the train wreck she'd turned her successful life into. Still slightly numb, she wrote in her thought diary, an initiative a friend had recommended to help her cope. She grabbed a red felt tipped marker pen and wrote in large bold capitalised letters.

NEXT TIME YOU HAVE AN ITCH, GO TO THE FUCKING PHARMACY! NEXT TIME YOU FUCK UP, FUCKING APOLOGISE! YOU'RE ABOUT HALF AS CLEVER AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

About eight weeks after she should have, Laura left to eat some humble pie. She bought a bottle of champagne to congratulate the new homeowners when she got there.

The end.

What do you reckon, dear reader? Good advice at the end perhaps. I have some more that you can take or leave. Whenever two people invite a third in to help solve a problem, whether it is a counsellor, a well-meaning lawyer or the guy next door, they give up some control over their own destiny. Wherever possible, solve your own problems and always treat those close to you with dignity and respect.

I don't know if the following saying is specifically Australian or not. "Be careful of the toes you step on today. They may be holding up the ass you have to kiss tomorrow."

As the above wasn't as sequel to a US story, it was written in Australian, or as we call it, 'Strine'. For those that don't want to go to the effort of looking up unfamiliar terms in an Australian dictionary, a 'creek' is a stream and going to the 'scrub' means going away from the city. Australians are an irreverent race, who don't automatically respect authority. A fact that often frustrates the shit out of our politicians who take themselves way too seriously. In fact, some of our most prominent politicians in the past were amongst the biggest larrikins of all. In the 70's, we had a Prime Minister named Gough (pronounced Goff) Whitlam. He was being pressed, in an interview, by an aggressive female journalist, who wanted him to declare which side of the abortion debate he was on. Like many politicians, Gough wanted to keep his personal views on this very divisive debate secret, but she was hammering him badly. Finally, he snapped and gave her his opinion, during a live interview. "Madam, I'm in favour of abortion, and in your case, I would make it retrospective." He jumped 20 points in the opinion polls.

I apologise for my recent absence but I'm currently in prison. I love reading stories about the heroes of the past and recently read the one about the little Dutch boy who saved the day by sticking his finger in a dyke. I'll spare you the details, but I was so impressed, I tried it myself. With good behaviour, I should be out in about six months.