Legal Bully

The year was 2004. My daughter was two, we had just moved to a new town and we were living with my (now ex) inlaws. I was desperate for a job. After suffering through a succession of temp work that lasted only a few days, I was hooked up with a gig via my mother-in-law as a secretary to an attorney who had a private practice in the next town north. I nearly cried with joy when I was hired.

My elation was short-lived. My boss, a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Miss Piggy, was an absolute imbecile. How she managed to graduate from law school remains a mystery to this day, and she never seemed to have any clients.

Furthermore, Miss Piggy, Esq. chain smoked. In her office. All day long. I tried to open the windows and turn the fans out to ventilate, but every time I did, Miss Piggy would scream from her desk, “Close those goddamn windows! I don’t pay to heat the outdoors!” So I would have to languish for eight hours in the cloud of fetid, putrid air that emanated from the five packs of Virginia Slims she sucked down. It was so bad that I had to shower and change immediately after getting home each night. Everything article of clothing I owned smelled like Joe Camel took a dump all over it.

Then, Miss Piggy started shorting me on pay. It was a little at first, a few dollars over the course of a couple of weeks, and then it started to grow. I documented every single penny she did not pay me. However, when I attempted to broach the issue with her, she would make excuses that she was too busy to discuss it with me, right before returning to her hundredth game of computer Solitaire.

I busted my ass for this woman. I cleaned her office from top to bottom, organized all of her files, created a database of her alleged “clients” (none of which ever called or came in), hauled out garbage and scrubbed the toilet. Meanwhile, Miss Piggy would sit in her office with her son’s girlfriend, who was inexplicably there every single day, and talk about how black men like to sleep with lots of women and have “tons of baby-mamas.” That’s a direct quote.

The final blow came at Christmas time. My parents were flying in from Alaska to spend the holiday with me, and I asked Miss Piggy if I could take off Christmas eve and the day after Christmas. Her response? “I have a practice to run, you know, and that’s not going to work for me. You’re fired.” End of discussion. End of job. I felt like I had hit the lottery.

Shortly after that, I sent Miss Piggy a letter, demanding all of the back pay she owed me and informing her that if she didn’t compensate me, I would be seeing her again in court. My mother-in-law, a probation officer, bumped into her at court one day, and Miss Piggy handed her check for the money I was owed. “I guess K finally got what she wanted,” she said to my MIL.

She was a crazy bitch. No wonder Kermit was always so hesitant in the Muppet movies.