keep your eye on the chicken salad

My father had all these great sayings. The one that I always hear in my mind and never seem to get it till it is too late is, "You deal in shit, you get covered in shit." It comes to mind today because I have an ex-husband from hell. Probably a very sick man and I am learning in AA to pray for him. That he needs help. That is sometimes so hard to do. What I would really like to do is scream at him or something. Bottom line is we are divorced. He got a lot of my money and caused a lot of harm to me. I had to file for personal bankruptcy after the divorce...and he didnt pay some of our taxes as he had said he did so when we got divorced I was responsible for the tax too. And then the IRS got it mixed up and awarded him innocent spouse relief. So I now have a lien on me personally ....the IRS can do that...I have no real property ...only a payment plan in place that was caused largely by my ex-husband. Anyway that is now ancient history. I have a payment plan in place and send $500 a month to the IRS for at least the next 6 years. And that is good. It was way worse. But I digress. I got really broke and went into my old file and the last letter I had from his attorney said that he only owed me $1,706. not the much larger sum that I had proof of. When I had gotten that letter I went insane. I was babbling to myself and I phoned my ex-husband and tried to reason with him. What was I thinking? Anyway I knew right then and there all I was learning said to just leave it alone. It is only money. Even now as I write about it my stomach is churning and I feel like throwing up. But I wrote the attorney and said fine send t he $1,706. and I just got a letter back basic telling me to screw myself. (I have to add right here that even now after all the mess I had with my ex-husband and all the screaming and meanness and everything I thought he would have at least had the decency to send the puny amount of money. I had it all spent too. Driving to the post office to get the letter--it was certified and when i had received the notice last night i had known there would be a check. I would send my daughter-in-law a present, get my teeth cleaned, buy new underwear...(Its been strictly speaking about 7 years since I last bought underwear and it is looking pretty awful.) Anyway I opened the letter that I had to sign for in three different places and there was no check. I looked twice to make sure. But no check. Just a really mean letter telling me to piss off. And I should have known better. You deal in shit you get covered in shit. I mean I am still feeling crummy because of it. I should have known. OK. Would I rather be right or happy? Happy. And that brings me to other of dad's sayings. The one the people in his office liked best they said when he had died was "Keep your eye on the chicken salad and not on the chicken shit." Which also applies here. But the one that always comes back to me is one i have never heard anywhere else, "You don't cut the tail of the dog off slowly." I will come back to that one in other posts.