TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: My dad is in town. He just landed. He's going to take a cab to the hotel and then Jess is going to drive the kids over to the hotel. The reason they stay there is because they have a pool and the kids love pools. Ian always talks about that. Lucille likes it, too. [00:01:04] If there wasn't a pool there I don't think she would take the kids. (laughing) Always kind of make whatever asking her to do in the best interest of the kids, you know? Then she'll do it. (pause) So I billed quite a bit of money the last two day. The motion was denied, however the judge ordered a GAL for my client's mom. Basically she didn't want to read the papers and look at the affidavits and try and parse out who is telling the truth, which is stupid because I've got two self-serving affidavits from them and then I've got my guy's mom's sister, who is a disinterested party because it doesn't affect her, and then the guy who notarized the document that's in question, an independent third party. [00:02:16] They haven't done anything other than say, "I believe she was incompetent," but they have to pay for the GAL and I just keep making money.
My client is a nice guy from Andover, a friend of a buddy, and I know I'll get paid. I didn't take a retainer. I gave him a good deal. It was kind of hectic. He doesn't have e-mail so I had to meet with him to patch up this affidavit. He loves to tell stories, so that was 2 1/2 hours. I waived the co-pay. That was a joke. [00:03:09] But, yeah, this thing will go on and I'll make some more money, I guess. (sighs) I'm kind of at a lull. There's just nothing coming in. I'm supposed to go down to South Carolina next week on what money, I don't know. So much of the money got sucked up in fees. It turned out to be eight fees, which comes out to $290 300. They credited me one. I'm talking to a contact at the bank (ph?). My current bank is in the building downstairs, so it's convenient. That's the only reason I'm staying with them. They're not doing closings any more. [00:04:02] They don't allow me to deposit a cashier's check and wire the money out, which they used to be able to do. They're convenient. They have this remote capture, all these banks have this remote capture thing where a business can just run their checks through and make deposits, but there is a monthly fee for the device. They won't let you do it on your phone. For my personal checking I can take a picture on the phone and deposit it, but for a business account you've got to use this device, this remote-capture device. I'm not going to be able to run into North Pembroke every time I need to go to the bank, but maybe I can get some business out of it. I don't know what to do. It's just such a pain in the ass. [00:05:08] So Marcia told me that she loves me.
THERAPIST: Congratulations.
CLIENT: Congratulations? Oh, I'm sorry. (laughs) That is a good thing. You're supposed to say, "Did you say you loved her back?" (pause) Some therapists actually ask groping questions. Try it. You might like it. (laughs)
THERAPIST: You are just giving me a hard time today from the moment I walked into the waiting room. (laughs) [00:06:04]
CLIENT: It's Friday. My parents are in town. Just wait. I've really lined up something for you. But no, no. I've got a joke. Tell me. Ask me.
THERAPIST: Ask you what?
CLIENT: Did I say that I loved her back.
THERAPIST: Okay. So I'm asking you because it's set up for a joke?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Okay. Sure. Did you say you loved her back?
CLIENT: Well, I wanted to get laid that night. (laughs) Oh, boy. So, yeah. Old couple in love, I guess. I'm not exactly sure what love is. I want to talk about that today a little bit. It's nice. I just noticed this growing emotion within her towards me. [00:07:03] I think the icing on the cake was Wednesday night; she has to go watch her old lady. She's boarding dogs now. She's got four dogs over, including her ex-boyfriend's 16-year-old dog that's about to die. We're good buddies, me and the dog. I was like, "I'll watch the dogs. I'll come down, stay over, and watch the dogs." I had offered to do stuff earlier but she had always denied it. She was excited and kept thanking me and thanking me, so I think that kind of sealed my fate. But now that she's boarding all these dogs, I have to go to Watertown because she can't leave. [00:08:05] She had Kobie, the 16-year-old dying husky. She can't leave him in Watertown or with her roommate. If she had one or two dogs she probably would. It's more gas money and more tolls. I'm going out to dinner with my dad and stepmom Saturday night. Of course, she's got dogs so I think we're going to go down to the Place. I think my dad might like to see the stadium. Buy me a nice expensive meal. I think once this hearing was over this morning it was like, "Whew." I was pretty anxious. I took a Klonopin. It didn't work. [00:09:02] I was really anxious. I was sitting between my client and his aunt and my legs are shaking. I didn't understand it. I'm kind of pissed off because you go into the court where it's a serious court and the judges give you a chance to make your argument. They look at the papers. In probate court you've just got people coming in divorces, divorces, divorces and here comes a case that's a conservatorship. It's not your run-of-the-mill. The judge didn't even know the code section was codified last year. They never heard of it. It's probably the first motion they had. They just felt, first of all, she's reading out loud my motion. The title of my motion, which there were several spelling errors because, for some reason, my mainstream software always changes the standard options on Word and the thing it's doing now is turning off the spell-checker so I'm unwittingly sending out stuff. [00:10:20] That happened with this motion and, of course, my client gets to see all the spelling errors. I whipped this thing off in an hour. I had to serve it yesterday so I wanted to make sure I could get it over. I think she kind of, because of those errors, she immediately discredited it. I won the motion. She bought my big argument, but I didn't do enough to convince her that a GAL wasn't needed. I actually think the GAL is a great idea because it's going to cut off any other type of litigation they try. [00:11:08] We're going to have the report from an independent third party who represents this woman and is going to basically take what I have in the affidavits and put it in a report. They just filed affidavits full of lies and all kinds of stuffs. I've never dealt with a GAL before so I guess it's good experience. This is my first time I've actually been in probate court in front of the judge. That's probably why I was a little nervous. I just don't like that kind of litigation. Even in district court the judges and magistrates sort of give you the . . . on something like this that's a little unique and different, she just was shooting from the hip. [00:12:05] GAL, she took the easy way out. She knew she couldn't grant the motion because he didn't provide enough so instead of bothering to read the affidavits and the motions . . . it was a little frustrating.
So last night a friend of Marcia's is in town and we went out to dinner with her and her husband. We were sitting there and, strangely enough, this woman pulls a bottle, like a water Nalgene-type bottle, out of her purse and pours some form of alcohol into her glass. (laughs) What's going on? This is not normal behavior people smuggling alcohol into a nice restaurant. [00:13:07]You know, we're all in our 40's. So she's doing this and we're eating our dinner. Marcia is kind of disappointed in what she ordered because she ordered lobster pie and it was all claws, which is a valid complaint. She didn't want something else to eat. It's a new restaurant and she just thought they should know that they should put some lobster tails in there at $22 or whatever. So the woman manager/owner when she was coming over, she sees Marcia's friend pouring the drink and she comes over and is like, "This is an awkward situation. Alcohol law . . ." [00:14:04] She was very cool about it and didn't do anything. We still got a $10 discount for Marcia, I assume; it was a $10 discount. I had knocked over a drink and we had broken a glass. It was just something in the air that we should have been kicked out of this place. I noticed that Jennifer and Marcia even noticed it, too she was blaming Marcia for the fact that she was embarrassed. She said she had never done this before, but she blamed Marcia. She tried to blame her husband. I'm thinking to myself, "This is what I do. Dr. Chad." So I said to her, "You know, you're passing responsibility onto everyone else." There was some joking and poking going on and Marcia and Jennifer went to the bathroom and her husband said to me, "I'm so glad you said that." [00:15:12] (both laugh) He was like, "You were so spot on." I was like, "Yeah, I'm constantly being reminded by my therapist that I do that. Now that I notice it, I pay attention to it." Marcia is taking digs at her, I'm kind of feeding off Marcia, her husband is taking digs, and the woman just literally has a break-down at the table and just starts getting pissed at Marcia and her husband and me. She says, "You guys are picking on me." Whatever. On and on. Her and Marcia left. She's crying in the parking lot. Her husband is a former CO, a really nice guy. [00:16:02] We're just chatting. Apparently she says to Marcia, "Your douchebag boyfriend . . ." (laughs) And the funny thing is I am the type of person who will keep [feeling,] (ph?) you know? But I don't think this was a situation where I was actually doing what I usually do, so it was weird for me when Marcia told me that because I was like, "It was everybody was doing it, but everything is getting pushed onto me all of a sudden." The woman called this morning and apologized for calling me a douchebag. She's been with her family, his family, her family. They're traveling with a six-year-old. [00:17:01] I'm just like, "She's stressed out and she snapped." I thought you would appreciate the "pushing the responsibility off on everyone else." Dr. Chad would be proud. (pause)
This whole E&G thing . . . I told you I'm doing this taking the bull by the horns and getting everybody to invite . . .
THERAPIST: Yeah, with the spreadsheet.
CLIENT: Well it's basically me. I invited 25 people. There were eight other invites.
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Of the eight other invites, three people showed up. Those were personal invites, so you get a good rate. I invited people I didn't know. I had a lot of people not a lot several people who said, "I can't make it this week. Can I come another time?" Or they just didn't, you know, so probably one or two of those will hopefully show up as well. [00:18:04] I had three visitors, which is fantastic. It looks like maybe one or even two of them might join. One or two of the other set of three might join as well. I used to be like this in E&G where I was pushing people to do stuff. I never did it with inviting. It was a horrible habit. Basically I've just been floating at E&G and haven't, so I think a lot of people thought I was joking. I was like, "I need you to do either one person invite or five line e-mails." This woman who is new to the group was like, "This is pretty funny." I was like, "It's not. It's not a joke." "How do I find the names?" "Well, there is this thing called a google. Figure out who you want in the group. [00:19:07] What professions do you want in the group? Invite those people. Worst case you meet someone you might be able to do business with. "So I invited someone while I was out. I had to actually go out in the hallway to get some better reception, but I was basically hounding the Essex Chamber website. The hard part is figuring out the name of the person who I'm e-mailing. E&G has an invitation and I just have to slap it in there, put all the information in the spreadsheet. No one else has given me the information, but my information is going to be in there. I'm going to be inviting a lot more people than anyone else. [00:20:00] I've got it under follow-ups and what happens with the follow-ups and notes and things like that; and other people are putting notes in there, the two people who have used it. (chuckles) So far the fact that I'm able to sort of calculate our hit rate for the first meeting, there is some value there. Clearly, personal invitations are more effective and maybe five to one isn't enough, because we're a little below 10%. One of the three, I got her name from a former member of the group. That technically wasn't a blind e-mail and obviously when you say "so-and-so gave out your name" you've got a little extra.
THERAPIST: It's more personal.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:20:59] I'm trying going to try and e-mail everyone every week. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with it or not. [00:21:05] I e-mailed everyone today and went over their scenario, what I expect, preying to all their excuses. So if I survive, maybe two or three years from now I'll actually be making some money. That would be nice. I'm not going to ask my dad for money and bounce my friggin' malpractice check. I haven't heard from them. The cell phone company is threatening to shut off my phone bouncing them $100-whatever bucks next week. I've got this $300 coming in from selling tickets. [00:22:07] I've got all these tickets that I can't sell until the 24th. To get them to sell quickly I would, obviously, have to sell them below market, so that's more money I lose. I asked Jess a couple of times to borrow money this week and she just paid me the expenses in advance for the office. I still owe her a $200 check. I don't know. I'm in a situation where I've just billed a ton of money, but probably $1500. I don't even know because I was billing when I was in the hospital. I drafted letters, so it's probably closer to that. I'm not going to see that. [00:23:06] I can't send a bill out until the end of the month. "Hey, we just had your hearing. Here's your bill." No. I've got a couple of buyer-rep and seller-rep at the end of the month, so there might be a little bit of money there. I don't know what to do. Really. I don't know what to do. (pause) I'm tapped. I'm tapped. (pause) For some reason I don't want to tell Marcia that I'm tapped. [00:24:06] (pause) Which might be a good idea but . . . Sense of failure maybe.
THERAPIST: I imagine you're ashamed about it and [ ] (inaudible at 00:24:28). Although it's possible she would respond supportively.
CLIENT: Oh, of course she would. (pause) [00:25:12] I've got to pay for the fantasy football league. Kevin won't let me leave until I've given him the check. At $37 a pop, I can't keep bouncing checks. It's just ridiculous. I don't know. Maybe if there's some money. People owe me money, but it's not coming in. Two weeks ago my temp says, "I think I can put together two of the months." I got him to release a security deposit to me. They trashed the place. I don't give a shit. That covers one month. He needed June, July and August. I can pay August at the end of the month, but I can scrounge up two months in the next couple of weeks. I mailed them today. Every month there's something. I've got a big case coming in . . . and I get one check. If he came up with that two months . . . I'm really falling behind with my landlord. Andover. Not sure what to do. My credit score is 600, so it's not like I can even get a credit card to even borrow money on. I probably could get they've got these credit cards that . . . I actually stopped. There's a time period where I'm part of this sort of credit thing that's monitoring it all for me. [00:27:02] They send me cards that they think would be good, that I would qualify for. I haven't gotten any of those in a while. Then my fucking student loans, you know? I'm feeling better, though, with the Crohn's. I weaned down back to 20 mg today and I'm not feeling as confused and discombobulated and fatigued. I've gotten no sleep, but it's tiredness, not fatigue. At least with me there's a difference. That's one of the few things I had doubts going to probate court. That's a big relief. It's sort of a feather in my cap. [00:28:03] The court officer who grew up with my client as I'm walking out [ ] (inaudible at 00:28:11), which is good because sometimes you feel like you're making a really shitty argument. The judge was competent, so what can you do? The other accountant was very nice. Asked me how I was doing because he knows I was in the hospital. A very nice guy.
THERAPIST: Right. It was the other landlord case where the other accountant was kind of . . .
CLIENT: Yeah. This was a conservatorship case. The landlord tenant where that guy . . . yeah . . . dickhead.
THERAPIST: But this guy was a nice guy?
CLIENT: Yeah. This is how it's supposed to work. We don't take our client's feelings and express them onto each other. [00:29:06] I think from his perspective he's the third accountant they've hired. He clearly knows what he's doing. He's a licensed social worker so he specializes in this kind of law.
THERAPIST: What is a conservatorship?
CLIENT: That is someone who the guardian takes care of the person. The conservator takes care of their stuff. They're saying there was a bad transfer, that the son transferred the deed, had the mom transfer the property to him and his sister which, the way the deed was drafted, it ended up disinheriting two of the grandkids. Everything was done within the wishes of what the mom wanted to do. Of course now she can barely speak, so they're just looking for a money grab. [00:30:08] A lot of bad blood in his family. The sister, who was there today, I could not get her to shut up in court. The court officer was just keep whispering "Shhhh." She's like, "Judge Judy makes a million dollars a year." (laughs) She knows everything that's going on. The mom told everyone that she wanted her son and daughter to have the house and that the son-in-law, she did not want to have the house because he got super low below-market rents and she felt that he had been provided for. [00:31:03] It wasn't a vengeful thing. That's just how she felt. So the deed was done with rights of survivorship. So when the sister died, it went to my client and they're claiming the whole thing was fraud and that he knew that his sister was going to die, which isn't true. His sister, they said, was in failing health. Before the signing of the deed, she had a kidney transplant, which was wildly successful. They signed the deed. After, months later, she's doing her year checkup for her kidney transplant. She was fatigued and had some whatever, so they did some tests. She had cancer and died ten months later. They're saying that he knew that his sister was going to die and that's why he drafted the deed that way. It will be good because I've never dealt with a GAL and I've got to learn how to do that. [00:32:03] (phone rings) "We're at the hotel checking in. Call when you can. Did you contact . . ?" (clicking sounds) Those people are worthless. I guess it's kind of weird that usually when my parents are coming to town, that stresses me out. (phone rings) I have a lot of people that just can't stop calling me. I get a lot of telemarketers. [00:33:03] That's the problem with putting your phone number and e-mail on the Internet. You want people to be able to get in touch with you but that invites 100 other people but there's nothing I can do about it. I've got a much better spam filter. I switched my e-mail and so it e-mails me every day what it's captured so the worst I could go is 24 hours without seeing an e-mail. Where my old one, if I didn't check it, I never knew it was there. (sighs) (pause) [00:34:03] My dad always used to give me cash when he would leave town. I wonder if he's going to give me cash when he leaves town. (pause) I'm going to be stuck in South Carolina with no gas and no money. I've never just run out of money before. It's kind of weird. It's like these tickets are going right to the malpractice and to keep my phone on. That's kind of important. (pause) [00:35:12] Am I boring you today? I like that look. Sheer just "huh?". (chuckles)
THERAPIST: I was thinking about how the tenor of this session changed, I think. Before and after you told about being in the restaurant. Before that, it seemed a lot about [ ] (inaudible at 00:36:05) and being annoyed and so forth. Afterwards you seemed you were talking about things that are bothering you and you're upset about, mostly about not having enough of stuff like money, members at E&G, but you seemed more at ease.
CLIENT: I wasn't at ease this morning.
THERAPIST: No. You said you were really stressed out. Your legs were shaking. You took a Klonopin. You went to work afterwards. There also seemed to be a shift as you were here talking.
CLIENT: I kind of think it and kind of placed it all together and looked at it all together that I'm like, well, you know, my Crohn's is doing much better. [00:37:08] I haven't had any issue in the last couple of days. I worked out today. I took a shower afterwards. I got some free meals. My dad is going to give me a $200 bill on the way out of town. I can go buy a scratch ticket and win $10,000 a week for life or something like that. Is there anything significant about the tenor change? (pause) [00:38:03]
THERAPIST: I'm not sure what the significance is. I wonder if you were anxious to tell me that something I had said to you might actually have been helpful in spite of how you react at the moment when I say things, which also makes me think of what you said about Marcia telling you that she loved you, the worry you felt about that, I think.
CLIENT: Worry? [00:38:54]
THERAPIST: Yeah. You seemed a little uncomfortable in talking about it. Maybe you weren't, but . . .
CLIENT: I don't know. This relationship is different than any I've ever been in. She's been nicer to me than any person has ever been.
THERAPIST: I would imagine that that's kind of frightening, actually. It's also really nice, but I think also a little scary.
CLIENT: Yeah, but . . . (pause) To some degree I credit myself (chuckles), that the way I am being in the relationship and that what I am doing is making a difference in that regard as well, where previously I just wouldn't give a shit. [00:40:04] Now I try to be thoughtful and that kind of stuff. I just did dishes one time, where I had never done that before. We got a divorce over that. I didn't turn the dishwasher on I don't know. So that's kind of in there, that how it affects my self-esteem it really feels like I'm attempting to do the right things.
THERAPIST: Yeah. I would guess that makes you feel quite a bit better. You want to feel like the guy that does dishes and is thoughtful, I would think. [00:41:03]
CLIENT: She thinks I'm awesome.
THERAPIST: Nice.
CLIENT: Little does she know. (chuckles) What was I going to say? (pause) Oh I was going to say I'm kind of focused more on just wanting to do things that would make me happy and I'm able to do those things because I just don't really have any restrictions. I can play all the Frisbee I want. I'm not in [ ] (inaudible at 00:41:58). [00:42:01] But I still have a relationship. Somehow the money works in there where I'm saying, "Well, I don't have any money because I'm spending it to make myself happy, but that's just not cutting it." I'm just doing stupid things. Why did I buy the extra tickets? (sighs)
THERAPIST: We should stop.
CLIENT: Have a good weekend.
THERAPIST: Thank you.
CLIENT: I'll see you Tuesday.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
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