Kentucky Fried Money Orders

Chandler: I'm gonna be moving out, so you are gonna be in charge of paying the rent.
Joey: Right! And when is that deal?
Chandler: First of the month.
Joey: And that's every month?
Chandler: No, just the months you actually want to live here.

--Friends, "The One on the Last Night" (11/4/99)

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I've been having some trouble with the people renting my Morrell Park house. (Because it's important that I make the distinction that it's the Morrell Park house I'm renting out, I'm so goddamn rich. Heh.) Anyway, they've been late on the rent for awhile. June's rent was a month late, and as of last week July and August hadn't been paid. So on the advice of an attorney (who usually specializes in the tenant's end of things), I composed a letter outlining the history of my attempts to collect rent and giving them ten business days to get things straightened out. Last Friday was Day 10, and I heard nothing. So on Monday I went to Rent Court to get a date for an eviction.

Rent Court is in the courthouse on Fayette Street, so I parked in the garage on Gay Street and walked over. As I went in, I had to empty my pockets so my stuff could be run through the X-Ray machine. The guard looked in the tub and asked if I had any change, since it could set off the metal detector. I had none and walked through.

Neither I, nor the guard, nor the metal detector ever noticed my glasses perched atop my head.

Got my stuff together and went down the stairs to the clerk's window. I was second in line and we waited several minutes before someone finally got to us. I explained what was going on and I was handed a form, fill in all these spaces please and press down hard with your pen.

Pen? Damn. I took the form outside and walked a couple of blocks to a convenience store and bought a pen and a bottle of soda. Back to the courthouse and emptying my pockets again, this time including change. Glasses still made it through the detector.

I sat down and filled out the form, then brought it up to the clerk. She reviewed it, had me fill out a blank space I'd skipped, then told me to take it to the cashier's window.

The fee for an eviction comes in two parts. Part of the fee goes to the court, and another part goes directly to the city. The cashier asked me first for the city portion, which is five dollars, check or money order only.

"I can't pay cash?"

"Not for this fee, no."

I can't believe I'm going to leave the building again. "Where can I get a money order around here?"

"There's a place around the corner," she told me. Go out the front of the building, then around to the left, and turn right. There's a fried chicken place. You can get them in there."

"Fried chicken, right." This, she found kind of funny.

Out of the building again and off to my first stroll along that section of East Baltimore Street that they call The Block. Sure enough, there's a fried chicken place. I go inside and it turns out that there are at least four businesses in there. The chicken place, another place that sells cellphones and other gizmos, then there's a booth that sells only lottery tickets, and all the way in the back is a liquor store. This is where I get the money orders.

Back to the courthouse for the third time. By now I've figured out the bit with the glasses and don't even worry about them when I go through the detector. This is pretty much how Don Lucchesi bought it, as I recall, the deadly glasses routine. But, whatever. Back to the cashier's window, where of course there's a line now. I finally pay my fees and have a court date.

But here's the weird part. About an hour after I got home I got a phone call from the renters' daughter. It turns out that her parents abandoned the place, leaving her pretty much in the lurch. She wants to stay in the house, however. Stay tuned, this could get interesting.   

Comments

[Cham]

The daughter probably gets her money management skills from her parents. She is probably looking for a few more free months in this place, hoping you will feel sorry for her. I'd toss her out like yesterday's trash and spend extra time checking the references and credit history of the next group of tenants. If daughter wanted to stay in the place as a tenant she would have sent you cold cash rather than a sob story.

[yellojkt]

I'd want to see some cash before I let her stay.

[yellojkt]

You're just making excuses for hanging around the Block.