Fun with bomb squads: a tale from Divorce Court

CanuckAmok

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Wed Feb-23-05 11:32 AM
Original message

Fun with bomb squads: a tale from Divorce Court

Edited on Wed Feb-23-05 11:44 AM by CanuckAmok

Although this is not a play, I feel you'll enjoy an outline of the cast of main characters, so, for your benefit, and to enhance the storytelling experience, I present:

My CRAZY wife:

Her counsel:

My senior counsel:

My junior counsel:

a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Emergency Response Team:

a Black & Decker breadmaker:

and, finally, your humble narrator:

The year we got married, my wife inherited her late mother's Black & Decker breadmaker. When we moved into our own home, the breadmaker went in to the storage loft above the garage, unused by either if us, until we seperated some four years later.

When I cleaned out the house after she abandoned it, I found the breadmaker, tucked way in the back, and covered with dust.

"Hey, the breadmaker!", I exclaimed, as thoughts of my own slow-rising nutritious creations danced through my head.

And, within a week or so, I became the bread-makinest divorcee in the neighbourhood. I made loaves for friends, for parties, for the craft service table at work, and a whole-grain loaf for myself every week, without fail. I played that bradmaker as if it were a Stradavarius.

And so to court...

The setting tis the 150 year old, two story stone courthouse in Nanaimo BC. It's one of those buildings which has been added onto so many times, the original structure is now only a tiny section of the court complex. For reasons of scheduling, my divorce hearing was scheduled for the second floor, in one of the two original, huge courtrooms (old growth timber, stained glass, a public gallery, etc). The only other courtroom on that floor was being used for a murder trial involving some bikers and a drug deal gone bad.

But I digress...

For some reason, althoutgh we've been fighting about a relatively substantial pool of family assets since divorce proceedings began, about two weeks ago (just before the division of assets trial began), my CRAZY wife decided that she wanted, above all else, herdear departed mother's breadmaker back (I should point out at this point that it wasn't exactly a family heirloom; her mother bougt it on sale at Costco about a year before she died), and that I was some sort of monster for claiming it as my own.

So, as a conciliatory gesture, I wrapped up my precious trophy, and brought it to day six of the trial. through a protracted process, I gave it to my lawyer, who passed it on to my CRAZY wife's lawyer, who, in turn passed it on to my CRAZY wife.

They placed it in a corner of the witness room just before court was called to order for the morning, and there it sat.

When we adjourned for lunch, each party went their separate ways, as usual. My team and I went to a diner a few blocks from the courthouse. My senior council finished lunch a little early, and went back to the courthouse ahead of us, to prepare some documents.

When the junior council and I returned to the courthouse, the first floor was business as usual, but the second floor was chaos, and swarming with Sherriffs in tactical gear. This wasn't entirely uncommon, due to the biker trial proceeding alongside my own.

However, there was a frenetic energy this time, with Sherriffs and ERT mounties squalking to each other in excited tones on earpiece radios and such.

We were thinking that there had been a hit or something, right in the middle of the courtroom during the biker trial, or some such dramatic event... but we were somewhat off-base.

My seniour council ran up to junior and I, and took us by the arm, laughing hysterically...he pulled us into the witness room, and said, between gasps, "see anything missing?".

The breadmaker was gone...and then everything became crystal-clear.

My CRAZY wife and her supposedly learned council thought nothing of leaving the breadmaker unattended during the lunch break, and wobbled off to some bistro on their Ferragamo heels, unconcerned.

A court clerk happened past the witness room during the lunch break, and noticed the white metal box sitting in the corner of the empty room.

Coincidentally, there had been a bomb-threat called into the court a few days earlier, and the staff were...edgy.

Taking no chances, the clerk called the duty sherriff, who upon cautiously inspecting the breadmaker from a distance, excercised his powers to dispatch the RCMP ERT bomb disposal team.

The courthouse complex was evacuated, and the breadmaker carefully removed by two explosives experts. Taken to a remote area of the building's sub-basement, it was determined to be a... breadmaker.

By the time we returned from lunch, the dust was just settling, and my CRAZY wife's counsel was being admonished by the administrators of the court for being so negligent. She will likely be reported to the Law Society, and will probably have to make a donation to a charity as a fine.

I suggest she donate to the Food Bank... or perhaps she can just bake them some bread.