Nine out of Ten Judges Prefer Me

Dah-doing, dah-doing, dah-doing went my heart at 180 beats per second.  Sorry.  Minute.

I paid another little trip to the Ladies.

I have often been told that it doesn't show when I'm nervous.

I hoped it didn't show now.

I was outside Court Room No 2 waiting to be called in by the judge, sitting in the same small room as my adversaries.

"Odd," I thought.  "I feel just like this when I'm stuck in the same room as my Nemesis, only I don't hate them so much.  I just don't want to look at them and will pretend they don't exist."

My next thought was, "This must be what being on The Apprentice feels like."

The internal phone rang.

"Hadow vs Doodah. Lord Whateverhisnamewas will see you now."

We followed her in to this intimidating room with My Lord sitting way above us behind a barrier on a sort of platform at one end of the room, surrounded ny microphones and other paraphernalia.

"You may sit down," the elderly gentleman from my sort of world commanded from his stage.

"Yes M'Lud" gushed my ex-garage-man, a short, fat, t-shirted version of Uriah Heep.

Well the outcome was always obvious.  Two hours later his judgement was that the garage should keep Bill the knackered Mistubishi, and return the £2500 I had paid them not to repair him properly, plus £275 I had paid in court costs.  Just as anyone could have predicted.  The whole thing was a complete waste of everybody's time, money, and nervous energy.  A pyrrhic victory.  I did not in the least feel like jumping around grinning and punching the air, as they wrote me out my cheque.  Instead I felt like hitting them. Stupid, thick, idiots.

What was most interesting to me about the whole experience, was how the garage man's bottle blonde girlfriend streamed lies - so many that I couldn't keep up and remember them all when it was finally my turn to be allowed to speak.  Under no circumstances may you interrupt either your adversary or the judge.  And if you start writing things down you can't keep up with the rest of the c..p.

Amongst 1000 other things, she claimed that my man friend and I were both aggressive towards her, that I had thrown the car keys at her, and run out of her office.  In fact I had thought that my 'man friend' - an internet date whom I'd met twice, who had very sweetly agreed to accompany me into the foray, and was keeping out of the way near the door - wasn't actually as supportive as I had expected he would be.  Meanwhile I left the keys in the car for the garage to check out what was still wrong with it, and drove off with my very kind and generous date, who has since turned into a good friend, for lunch at the Mill End Hotel outside Chagford, in his sports car.

I believe, though, that she believed every word she was saying, while even the judge appeared to be raising his eyebrows slightly.  He termed my encounters with the garage staff as "unsatisfactory"  and it was fairly clear to me that he had a pretty good idea of what had actually transpired.

I wonder whether hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of court time are wasted like this.

I hold my hand up and put the problem down to education. The pair were just, simply, massively THICK, and I can't hate them for that.  I know that I am privileged to have received a first rate education and am automatically at an advantage.

I have now won nine of the ten of my small and middle-sized claims.  These include the cutlery company whose 'lifetime' silver plate went green after less than a year; two plumbers; BT (twice); a holiday company who neglected to supply an aeroplane home, a removals company who left behind half our belongings, and whose lorry we had to push up the hill; and an ex-friend for whom I bought a horse, who sold it without telling me and sniffed away the proceeds.  Most of them were already bankrupt and knew just how to avoid the bailiffs, so I haven't necessarily received compensation, but feel they have received some comeuppance.

The case I lost was the burglar alarm company who charged double their estimate without checking first that I would be pay, so I didn't.  They sued me, and  I now have a credit rating problem because I was on holiday when the order arrived telling me to cough up.  

So my question is, why am I the only person I have ever met who gets herself into these situations? I may be blonde (a real one!) but I won't put up with people treating me as one. Because my sense is, as I think I've said earlier, that they will treat other people like this, who are less able to look after themselves, such as my Mum. I absolutely do not enjoy the process. But I won't have them getting away with being so hopeless and/or so horrid.   So there.

Hey ho.  I can relax now.  £2775 to put towards my child tax credits bill.