Intestate

“Congratulations! You are now part of the 18% that have a will!” said my attorney back in '96. I had just finished being an executor of an estate, my mom's, and the final thing the lawyer wanted me to do was to draw up a will. 

Until you sit down and actually think about it, you really have to grapple with just you want to leave and to whom. It's not that easy. Not only that, time passes from when you put your John Hancock on the document and you realize you have to change it up again.

Why change it? Because the people you were going to leave stuff too turn out to be pig-dogs years later. I can't see leaving eight guitars to a chick I want nothing to do with now.

I've been named executor three times now in wills and have sat in court many times too to process them. It's boring but you have to make sure you dot all your i's and cross all your t's. If you don't the judge will rip you a new one. The thing I noticed about probate judges is that they really detest stupid people. I watched on judge tear into an executrix for not having half the documents needed. They give you nine months in RI to do that. PS. Keep your mouth shut and briefly answer ONLY the questions asked you. There really is no fucking around when it comes to this stuff.

So when you walk into that courtroom, have your shit wired tight at all times.

Know what's even spookier? Signing your own execution warrant. I have a power of attorney and a living will which says to yank the plug out of the wall should I become too demented to leap off the Rt 95 bridge myself, should I become too sick to do so and want out NOW. It's feels like James T Kirk giving the final code for the self destruct of the Enterprise. I finally signed it. Yikes!

I'll tell you this. Being executor gives you immense power over someone's estate. It also pisses the fuck off anyone else who wasn't named or mentioned in the will. I have received phone calls from others trying to grease their way into my brother's assets. “Oh, he would've wanted you to have that gold plated guitar signed by Jimi Hendrix?”

That last sentence is a bit hyperbolic but it ain't too far off of a phone call I got after my brother died. I sat there, with a shit eating grin on my face and drew out the conversation a bit more. It was time for fun. “Really? Ken said he hadn't talked to you in 18 years. He said he wanted you to have that Strat? When? 1983? Well, I hate to tell you but it's gone, sold in an estate sale I had to do about seven months ago.” I could swear I felt the disappointment come through the phone line. The Strat was sitting against the wall by my stereo setup.

Bastards. God. How they try.

**

I warn you all. Keep your eyes open when the funeral is over. They're very emotional times and everyone goes bananas. The sleazier ones will try to finagle something out of the estate and then get fuming mad when you alert them you've been appointed an “officer of the court” for a while and have ALL that backing to say “NO!” to them.

Here's a telling story about keeping your shit together and what happens when you don't.

My Mom, after her husband had died, became a pile of jello for a while. My brother and I had to run the ship around here for a while but we were both too young to have been appointed executors. She was appointed. Bad choice. But what the hell are you gonna do? She was at a loss for what to do, what lawyer to hire and had not the slightest idea on how to push this whole thing through court. She then mistakenly relied upon her oldest brother to find a lawyer and “help.”

Well, the probate went thought the court but for one thing that she found out months after it was finalized. $10,000 was missing. Thinking back on it, she remembered her brother and the lawyer he hired had come to Fatima hospital where she staying for a bit for stress. She signed a document while ripped to shit on drugs and barely remembered just what it was.

This is about as illegal as Hitler running a red light. Any lawyer getting caught doing this will have his testicles handed to him in court. If caught, of course.

But, she had no evidence to make her plea and being in the emotional state she was, wasn't about to mount a fight. But she never forgot. Neither did my brother or I.

I don't have to tell you that the closest people in your lives are perhaps the ones who love to shove that knife in your back, do I? Especially when an insurance policy comes due or a guitar is known to be available.

Get mercenary. Get prickish. Use that court appointed power like a baseball bat if needed and you find yourself in some screamfest family fight over dear dead ol' Dad's assets.

Keep your eyes open.

Oh, and get a will too. If you die intestate, your scumbag sister and her alcoholic husband can mount a claim against your estate and chisel off some of those assets meant for your wife and kids. No joke. I watched it happen once.