Yesterday, I had one of the worst mini panic attacks of my life. I’m sure you have been able to piece together why based on the title of this post. So, I am going to tell you all about what happened and my overreaction.
I had the day off from work, and because the weather was so nice I decided to walk to my mom’s house to visit her. She lives about a mile from my place, so walking would have been easy. I was getting my headphones for the walk, I downloaded a podcast to listen to, and as soon as I opened the door there was a stack of papers taped to my door. Right away I thought this can’t be good.
It was a summons to appear in court, but I didn’t see any useful information on it right away on why I was being summoned. I skimmed over everything and got to a checked box that said, “to be evicted”. This is the part when my heart dropped, and I began to panic which is never helpful. I started flipping through the pages trying to get more information, and I found a page that I said I had failed to pay my rent. Now not only am I panicking, but I’m also angry because I have been paying my rent on time for the entire time I have lived here. I keep going through the papers and find a phone number for the court officer in charge of the summons and called immediately.
When I called the court officer he answered right away, which was nice he was available, but also bad because I didn’t have a chance to think about what I was going to say. After he asked how he could help me I respond in a very scared tone with, “I got papers on my door saying I was getting evicted, what do I do?”. Looking back on it I realized I didn’t give him any useful information. Considering he is a court officer and probably does this every day I could have been anyone. I give this guy all the credit in the world for dealing with me because my heart was still pounding and I’m sure I probably had an attitude with him.
He starts talking me down and is asking questions to figure out what case I am. He asks who my landlord is, my name, my address, and he found my file and started walking me through it. The paper wasn’t technically an eviction notice, it was a summons to appear in court to protest an eviction. As the court officer is telling me that he has me look over the names of the plaintiff and defendants. He asked, “Is your name in the defendant’s box?”. To which I respond “No, I’m not Mary Ann”. A fact I think he could have pieced together given my deep voice. After calling my landlord I confirmed the summons was meant to go to a different building with the same apartment number. So, I left the summons outside my door for the court officer to pick up. When he got it, I came out to make sure he didn’t need anything else to which he responded, “I got it, and hey at least you’re not going to jail”.
There are a couple of morals we can take away from this story, but I think the most important one is to remain calm until you have all the information. There is no reason to work yourself up when it could be nothing. Basically, don’t borrow trouble.