Feeling Put-Upon by a Pettifogger

{Don't you love the word pettifogger? I came across this quote from preacher Henry Ward Beecher—did he ever utter anything that wasn't quotable?: "The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own conscience."}

Yesterday morning, I wrote again to the person I thought would be my new lawyer in my eviction case (but from whom I've not heard a peep) and told him that my bank account hadn't been subpoenaed by the landlord's frontmen. I knew this because I'd called my bank's legal department to ask about the subpoena process and was told that by Illinois law the bank had to inform me via mail that it had been tapped for my records. I'd received no such notification.

Until last night, when I retrieved our mail. Turns out, even as I was talking to a bank representative, someone else was working on getting my records. Boy, Life is one Big Seesaw, isn't it?

Here's the kicker: The landlord's henchmen want records going back only until May of this year.

That's such a short time; it hardly shows a pattern of payment. Heck, they didn't have to go through all the subpoena rigmarole! I could have handed those records to them.

And here's the other kicker: They left my husband's bank account alone. (Of course, I could be proved wrong about this on Monday. That Seesaw Effect could kick in again.) Granted, the rent checks have always come from me. But my husband's name is on the lease as prominently as mine is.

Why the discrimination? What are they looking for? Can't help feeling like this is personal.