You've been missed too Writer. Just had another member ask about you and I told them there was a huge family feud over the holidays. Glad you came out of that or one piece 
Sounds like work is going good with the promotion
I'm sure you'll do fine taking over in that position. Congratulations!
I came out a little beaten and bruised. Two of my richer family got to spend a night in jail, and I have been officially written out of their wills. My grandmother wrote them out, while my wife's family and my dad's side made up and almost burned down a forest.
After the Christmas feud, my dad's side and my wife's families got together at my dads ancestral home to basically drink through New Year. My mom's sides were trying to bail out cousins and my aunt and Uncle. It seems that the fight was over the fact that my crazy great aunt announced that I was such a sweet boy that she called her lawyer to put me in her will to inherit the small orange orchard land with a lake and house. Not close together, but there is a fishing lake a nice little hike away from the house. This land is hotly contested for, since under the land everyone swears that there is everything from oil to pirates treasure. I can assure you there isnt. This is florida. After that, my maternal grandmother decided to end the bullshit, and changed the master will she is executor of. She and her sister (the lush) control a trust that was to be divided evenly among her children. WELL, after some weasel like bullshit, that rich asshole cousin who made the fuss about me getting some money from my great aunt tried to contest that my mom's portion should be absorbed back into the trust so that other members of the family can get some. Note that those cousins are not closely related to my mom and not blood, but related by marriage. So the lawyer, my grandmother and I who was sporting an angry after new years hangover were hauled into mediation. I know jack and shit about being a lawyer, the laws or mediation, by the way.
So my siblings showed up, my dad showed up, and just about everyone involved showed up. Apparently any changes to the trust had to be voted on by the surviving relatives who are in control, which meant it was my grandmother, and Lush. Lush does not like me at all. She is a living, walking bottle of booze that has had it out for my mom for DECADES. The reason? My mom with our limited money growing up decided to babysit my two cousins, Crack fiend and Cum dumpster. I am not insulting women, but they both were not good examples of how to be. when my mom had to watch them, they were in middle school going into high school. I was like 6, my brother was 4 almost 5, my sister was 3, and other sister was 1, and my mom was pregnant with my youngest sister, and the following year she would make my last little brother. So money was tight, and we had to feed them and entertain them while Lush was "working" more like working another bottle of jack. But it was a friday, I had just gotten my spanking for doing some stupid shit, and Lush shows up at our bed time, so late that my cousins were passed out on the couch. She reeked of booze and weed, and she came to collect the kids. My mom would not let her, cops were called, my uncle of the moment came (she went through 3 husbands, with the third dying of a heart attack.) to get the kids, and lush spending the night in jail. So shes hated my mom ever since, since her license was suspended for a year, and she had to attend treatment.
So we are all sitting in this room, at a large table, I had my head down on it, because I got completely and totally fucked up on premixed white russians and martini's the night before, and I was paying for it. Despite eating sub sandwiches, and pretzel snacks. My grandmother sat, holding her bag, while the lawyer started the vote. I had a vote because my mom put me in it. My siblings had a small stake in it too. My dad, had POA over mom before she died and had a massive stake in it.
Here is how the trust was supposed to work.
My moms brothers and sisters would get half of it divided among the four of them. They could set fire to their portion when they got it if they wanted to. The other half was to be doled out to other relatives and to settle any debts left behind when my grandmother and grand aunt passed. The asswipe is the second son of Lushes first husband. He was a dick the moment he was born. I was already walking when he was born, and we never got along since. I dont like him, he acts like his daddy's money makes him a monarch. Well bad news bro, your mom drank that money away. No one is allowed to tell him that secret, but Lush hit my mom and her siblings up HARD for money back in the day, to cover up the fact she was bleeding her husbands bank accounts dry. Like I said, asswipe was not blood related.
So the votes were cast. it was split evenly among us, half to not change and the other to change. The tie breaker would be........
My wife.
My mom loved my wife, and thought she was the brains of the marriage. So she got bent at Lush for some shit, and called the lawyer to have my wife added to my portion of the trust in the event I meet my untimely demise, she would be cared for, along with my children. So my wife sitting like she was an innocent schoolgirl, just smiled to the assholes and voted to not change it.
See, Lush would start this shit with the trust every time she needed money. She had her portion, but could not touch it, because, her older sister was technically in charge of both parts, because their parents, my great grandparents were genius at predicting things to come. They knew if Lush got her hands on the money, it would vanish quickly, so it was paid out to Lush in monthly payments. My wife cast her vote and thats when the lawyer opened an ENVELOPE. It was supposed to have been opened at my mom's funeral. But not many of her family were there, and the lawyer was indisposed, so he called me and my dad to see if it was okay to open it.
In the ENVELOPE was the letter granting the dispersing of my moms portion to her surviving family.
I did not know she set that up.
Well.
After my dad signed it, and me and my wife signed it, and my siblings of course signed it, my mom's portion was given to us.
BUT dear readers, it wasn't just money.
My great grandparents loved surprises. I remember being a little boy, and they would show up to our house on my birthday with a brand new Transformer, wrapped up. AND it was the one I wanted and did not have. The last one I got was Gen 1 Devastator. They would die in 1986 and 2008 seperately. But their love of surprises was always interesting.
Now let me say this. They were not rich. or loaded. But there were some deals made, and investments left to mature, and things happened. And when it all came to a head, there was something there. And there lies the issue. Among the trinkets left to my mom was a gun.
If you looked at it, you would think it was some replica wild west rifle.
It was not.
It was a well cared for rifle made a year or two after the Civil War. It was carried by the Greek Immigrants who are my moms ancestors who fled Greece to come to America. They bought a wagon and a rifle and found a spot down south to settle. The family Heirloom. Not the ultimate heirloom, but one of great importance. And my mom left it to my father. My grandmother smiled and slid the gun safe key to my dad, and got up and left, laughing all the way.
I do not know what kind of rifle it was, since the last time I touched it, I got my ass beaten like I owed the entire family money. But my dad said it was a nice rifle. Wont tell me much more after that.
So I got my check, and after everything was said and done, the lawyer left, and all hell broke loose. The richie fucks I call family decided it was time for us to settle all outstanding debts. Even if no one owed anyone anything. My dad had to play defense to get my sisters out, as they were being attacked for their checks. We make it out to the parking lot when asswipe committed the most mortal of sins. He grabbed my wife's sore shoulder to stop and spin her around. She lost her balance and fell down on her ass. My wife was working through an injury and was tired and hungover. She started crying and that my friends was when the doom music kicked in.
Fuck my knee pain. I bullrushed the stupid fuck right into the side of my suv. Football taught me alot, like exploding off the line. I put my shoulder into it to try and knock the wind out of him. No one touches my wife. No one.
My sisters rushed from their cars to help my wife as asswipe's friends and family who were waiting came around to separate us, and he swung and hit...
Lush.
His "mother."
She was trying to get to my wife's purse, and stepped right into asswipes swing. And down she went, and then the police came, and asswipe claimed I hit her, and the security video showed me backing up when he swung and dropped his mom. Oh and he had some not prescribed to him xanax on him, so off to jail he and a couple of others who picked a fight with my brothers, went.
The money we got, that everyone was soo gung ho to get?
10.6k
Like I said, I wanted to warn everyone in my family that the trust was not some dynasty level money. So I deposited my check, and my wife got the BLANKET.
The BLANKET was another heirloom, passed from mother to mother. My wife during her first pregnancy, being a teen had a major freak out and my mom made her some tea and wrapped her in that BLANKET to comfort her, since my grandma did it to my mom and so on since it was sewn together. My sisters grumbled about it until he reminded them that they called it ugly when my mom asked if they wanted to display it in their rooms. Its worth: Not a single cent.
The setting the woods on fire? it came about because those lovable idiots I call family were trying to do redneck and burn out a ground wasp nest at a party, and after drinking. Yeah.
So thats how the feud ended, but the reason I was gone was work. I pull all nighters making sure every piece of paper is correct and filed right. and wife works nights again, because apparently there is a lot of women seeking the ER.