Have you ever had one of those days where everything seemed to be going just fine until some tool came along and messed up the whole works?
That’s how today went. I was doing just fine. I had picked up my car from the mechanics after they replaced all of my brakes. I was pretty happy to be able to stop once again so I was feeling pretty chipper about things. I had a project I was working on that I was on track to finish on time and both kids were out for the evening. Son was at geek class and daughter was with her dad, ex #2. I had the house to myself and was looking forward to working in peace.
I sat down to my computer and checked my blog and got the blue screen of death and then it shut off. I turned it on again and it fired up fine. I wasn’t too concerned but thought to myself:
“Hey, you bought an external hard drive to back up everything in the event that your computer crashed again. Now might be a good time to figure out how it works.”
So I did. I did a back up all by myself!
While backing up I noticed the little indicator thingy that tells me I am online had a big red X over it. I was not able to get online. I did a little trouble shooting and could not get back online. I ended up calling Linksys to see if they knew what the problem was.
They didn’t. I got another customer service representative who does not live in these United States and who does not speak English as a first language. He did the same trouble shooting that I did and then told me to connect my PC to the router with an Ethernet cable. I already knew this was unnecessary since the other computer had no problem getting online with a wireless connection but the non speaking English guy had run out of reasons for why my wireless connection wasn’t working.
He asked me for my credit card and told me that once I had procured an Ethernet cable that would go from my second floor to my basement I should call him back and we would fix things.
I told him not to charge my card and that I would take care of it myself.
I called a friend who is an IT god and explained the situation.
We determined that my wireless card died and that I needed a new one. This seemed more reasonable to me and cost less than the help over the phone so I hung up and headed out to Best Buy, a great Minnesota company that let a few people go today.
I bought the card, returned home and began the installation process. All was going swimmingly.
Until ex#2 dropped daughter off at the house.
Ex#2 and I have been rather cool to one another since he announced he was taking me to court. If you need a refresher on that please go here. A few months ago when he was using my truck he got a parking ticket. He said he would take care of it but apparently decided when he was going to screw me over he didn’t need to take care of the ticket. I received a summons in the mail today which I mentioned to him when he dropped off daughter. He shrugged and left without saying what he planned on doing. Of course I didn’t expect him to be a stand up guy but had to ask. And that is all I did. Our days of going round and round about his stupidity and lack of ethics and morals are long gone.
30 seconds after leaving he called me on the phone.
“Just consider yourself ahead of the game and suck up the $75 for the ticket.” He said.
“What are you talking about?” I said
“As soon as we go to court you are going to lose everything you are taking from me right now.” He shouted into the phone.
“Are you high?” I asked.
“Just wait, you will see. You are bleeding me dry and it won’t go on any longer. The courts will see and act accordingly. You ought to be ashamed.” He blathered on and on but I had long stopped listening to him.
I won’t go into details but if any bleeding is happening it is on this end of things. He is an idiot however and will never see it so I don’t bother to explain it to him.
I couldn’t understand why he was so upset until I caught part of his rambling:
“Daughter says you told her she could change her name.”
Ah ha!
I didn’t even know she wanted to change her name but I am tickled that she would. When the nurse came in after she was born and asked for her name I almost gave her my name. I knew then that the marriage was over and I would regret it if I didn’t give her my name but I wasn’t ready to concede yet so I gave her his name. It hasn’t really been an issue until this year where she has to learn to read and write her full name. My last name is common and easy and short. His last name is unique, it isn’t spelled the way it sounds and everyone who has his last name is a relative. When we divorced I went back to my maiden name. No one in our house has the same last name which makes invitations to the family unit cumbersome on an envelope. Most people just shorten it to Jenny and Kids.
I didn’t have a chance to defend the accusation he just kept going on and on about how unfair I have been to him. He then went off on my son. Normally this would have set me off but I don’t care what he thinks anymore and I know that he is intimidated by my son. Son is and has been smarted than ex#2 since he was about 7 years old and now that he has gone through puberty he is twice ex#2’s size. Ex#2 is the kind of guy who is easily intimidated by a person’s size so it’s fun to watch. Son wouldn’t hurt a fly but ex#2 doesn’t know this.
“My son does not bad mouth you around daughter. I have explained to him that that is not permissible.”
“Well he must do it when you aren’t around.”
I’m always around but I didn’t say this. I said this instead.
“Son is not talking or even thinking about you anymore. Yes, he was angry when you walked out on us and didn’t even say goodbye to him but he has moved on from that. I promise you that we do not talk about you behind your back. You do not cross our minds when you are not here. You are a non issue.”
“We’ll just see about that! I hope you read the paper today.” He stated. And then he hung up.
WTF? I had not seen the paper today but I have read the paper online and had the news on TV most of the day. There was no breaking news headline that said Jen watch out your ex#2 has done something that you will wish you had read about in the paper. What kinds of drugs is he taking to suspend reality so wonderfully? How can someone appear to be functioning just fine but have absolutely no idea what is going on in the world? At least this little world.
And what is in the paper?
Oh lordy lou…I feel badly for you but at the same time I’m glad this mess isn’t in my life right now.
I think you will be just fine as a strong woman.
Cheers
WOW! Really no words to even describe this whole situation. You are strong and this too shall pass!!
Your ex sounds like an idiot I was married to when I was 17 I hope he wasn’t abusive also.
Poor baby. Nothing worse than this crap, and the sad fact that you will look at his ugly puss until she is eighteen.
I hope you won’t let him bother you too much. And I really hope everything will end nicely.. Maybe he’s just feeling the pinch. 🙂
Your ex sounds like my ex. Only I know for a fact mine is delusional because I went with him for his psych visits. lol!
My ex actually had the gall to petition the court to make me pay back to him child support he paid me when he was unemployed. Nothing has ever happened with those petitions because I have always countered with failure to pay child support petitions when he stopped paying. Fortunately in the county I live in the judges favor the mother.
He is just trying to get your goat. He knows he doesn’t have the upper hand, so he wants to make you believe that he does to have power over you. Mine does it all the time. This last time in court though he was shaking in his boots because the bailiff and judge threatened to arrest him the previous court date because he was talking back to the judge. That worked greatly to my advantage the last court date and I got what I wanted in the Agreed Order for Child Support and Supervised/Modified Visitation. But as we all know it’s an Agreed Order, it doesn’t mean he’s actually going to follow the terms of it. It was supposed to be 2 supervised visits, then step down to unsupervised visit at his place for my son and a brief visit near my house for my daughter. He’s already tried to skip the last supervised visitation because he didn’t come for that visit claiming he was ill, now he says he has no supervisor for the visit this weekend. So I being the idiot that I am, and feeling bad for my kids because he is such an a**hole, offered to volunteer to supervise Saturday afternoon only and he has to pay my way if he wants to take them to dinner or the movies. (Hell, he’s not working and not paying child support so I’m not going to have this cost me money. I can’t work and can’t afford to pay.) My partner is teasing the snot out of me, jokingly calling it a “date” and so on. But hell, I’m not even sitting in the same row at the theater! My kids have seen their father once in the last almost 8 months. It’s not about me, it’s about the kids. Too bad he’s never realized that.
Just for snicks and grins, I’d scour the newspaper, but I doubt there is anything in there.
Your ex sounds like the delusional ex of my daughter. Full of dark empty threats and menacing words and a good deal of paranoia too. I reality these guys are such wimps, but they do create havoc. Record his phone calls and save his phone messages. That’s what my daughter does for future court cases. Also save all his emails to you. They usually lay their own trap.
Egads! Where we all married to the same guy? lol
I know how the mind games can play on a person’s mind. Sounds like something has him feeling threatened, so he’s trying to lash out at you.
I agree with The Finely Tuned Woman, keep all messages, etc. that you get from him. You never know when it just might come in handy.
If nothing else, you might get lucky and be able to slap him with harassment.