Love?

 I once knew a couple who were violently in love. Or so they said.

The man worked for my husband. There were several times I had to go to other companies to counteract this man's actions. 

For instance there was a time the man drove a truck loaded with scrap to a company that dealt with that sort of merchandise. When he returned with the full load he was ranting. Apparently he had decided he should not have to wait in line with other trucks. He screamed and swore until he was forced to leave.

I decided to take a truck filled with scrap to the same company. He was to follow and stay in his truck until I took care of things. I went into the office and had everything smoothed over when he came storming in. I turned him around and pushed him out of the office. We unloaded our trucks with no further incident.

His wife was a shopper. She almost lived at K-Mart. We all had a good laugh when she was on vacation and K-Mart issued a quarterly statement that profits were down. She did not shop while on vacation.

They were actually nice people most of the time. We occasionally saw them socially and enjoyed their company. 

The problems arose when they would argue. Which was apparently often. As far as I know they never were physical with each other.

The problem was that one or the other of them would pick up a club of some kind and break out all the glass in the car. That included window, lights, and mirrors.

Every week he would have to purchase new glass and install it. What a waste.

Justice?

I loved living in the small town we lived in in Tennessee. Our house was on a dead-end street. At the edge of our backyard was a dried-up creek bed. I was happy there. My children were happy there.

My husband was a truck driver. He was gone all week and came home on the weekends. All those nice chores that pile up were waiting for him when he came home. 

One weekend he discovered that an unused chicken coop down by the creek bed had a lot of snakes in it. He immediately set fire to it. 

After a length of time the fire department came and tried to put out the fire. The coop was too far gone by then so mission accomplished.

The police issued a strong warning to my husband to never do that again. The shed was gone. It would not happen again. They also issued a ticket requiring him to appear in court so he would make restitution to the fire department.

We hired a lawyer to represent my husband in court. While the judge understood the reasoning behind burning the chicken coop he acknowledged that my husband should have used better sense than to set it on fire without supervision. Case dismissed.

Afterward we were talking to the lawyer. He said to be very careful. He told us that the governing body of the city would look for vengeance.

About a month later I heard a knock at the front door. When I answered it there were two policemen standing there. They were there to arrest me.

The charge was that my lawn needed mowing. I had four small children. Two of them were babies. I couldn't leave them alone. They issued a ticket with an upcoming court date instead of taking me to jail.

I went immediately to call the lawyer. He told me he had been expecting to hear from me. The police had just been at his house. He got a ticket for his yard being "unkempt".

I went to court. The charges were dismissed. We moved.