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“Are you Greg Tindale?”
I searched the face of the woman asking the question. I couldn’t place how I knew her, or she knew me. Maybe she knew me from improv? Maybe she was an old neighbor?
It was the first time I had been back in this part of my old Adams Morgan neighborhood in three years. The area had been a hotbed of creativity and love for me before I went into a real estate death spiral and left for California. Now officially back in D.C. and working steadily at selling real estate, I reached out to the co-op board to have a meeting and discuss how I could begin to resolve my debts. The new co-op board president said he would look into my situation and get back to me. After a month of radio silence, he agreed to meet me at the bagel shop, a block from our building.
“Yes, I’m Greg Tindale.”
A large brown envelope was shoved in my hands and the woman took off out the door. I had been served.
And not in the cool way where you are in a dance battle and you think you are going to win it and at the last minute your opponent pulls out a dance move never seen before and says, “You’ve been served.” I was served in the, “there is a lawsuit against you and here is your court date” way.
A flood of questions washed over me. Was this meeting a set up to get me somewhere so they could serve me? Was the co-op board president even planning to meet me? Was I supposed to wait around for him to show up? Were my bagel sandwiches ready yet?
One answer came quickly. The bagel sandwiches were ready, so I sat and ate in confusion. The co-op board hadn’t reached out to me in over a year. I reached out to make amends. Why would they take legal action without even having a conversation?
A few minutes later, the new co-op board president walked in. I had met him on previous occasions and he seemed like a lovely person. I could feel the anger well up inside me, but kept it locked up to try and figure out what was going on.
“I’m a little confused about this lawsuit.”
“Well the Board felt like the time to talk was over.”
“Then why did you agree to have a meeting with me to talk?”
I felt like I was being punked.
I wanted the reconciliation to be amicable, but was met with power moves. The co-op board president left and I continued to stew on what had transpired.
I hate lawsuits. I had no intention of giving my mental and emotional energy to fighting to be “right.” I’ve seen multiple people become shells of themselves as they tried to get a court to agree with them. Why pay a lawyer to help me prove I’m right? The lawsuit required that I respond in 90 days or the court would issue a judgment against me in the amount I owed to the co-op.
So I did what felt like the right thing at the time, I put the documents in a drawer and ignored them.
I continued living my life. Enjoying time with my wife and infant daughter. Doing improv with friends. Working hard for my real estate clients. But the lawsuit was still in the back of my mind.
As my deadline to respond came down to just a few days, I called the courthouse to ask a few questions. Anyone who has ever tried to talk to a government worker over the phone knows how frustrating it can be to get the information you need. This was the same D.C. government that had a hand in my real estate mess by not recognizing its own tax court ruling. I had very little expectations, but I felt it was the adult thing to do to know my options and potential outcomes.
The government worker who answered the phone was like a goddamn D.C. Lawsuits for Dummies guidebook. He broke down in such detail the exact steps I needed to take that I felt like I would be letting him down if I didn’t make a formal response.
“You’re going to go to the first floor. As soon as you pass the metal detectors, go the left. Wait in line. You’ll get a ticket for the civil division. Ask for a civil response form. Once you’ve received that, take the escalators to the third floor. Don’t take the elevator, it takes longer. On the third floor, you’ll pass a vending machine. Skip it. At the end of the hallway there is another vending machine with bags of Gardetto’s snack mix…”
Damn, this guy was good! How did he know I liked Gardetto’s snack mix? The next day, I followed the man’s instructions and sent a formal response, asking for a court date.
I knew I was wrong in this case.
But I knew other people did shitty things too. No one person or thing intentionally worked against me to get me to this point, but I wanted to be heard. I wanted to tell my story and how ridiculous it was, so others could sympathize. Heck, maybe they would lower the amount I owed.
The court date came and, in a weird way, I was fulfilling a dream. I was acting as my own legal counsel in a court of law. I had prepared a timeline of the events. I created a series of points to highlight mistakes by the co-op board. I was ready for my case. What I didn’t realize is that the first time you go to court is just to decide the next time you actually go to court for trial. I was ready to go to battle, but we were just there to pick a good day for everyone to go to battle.
The judge, in his sage wisdom, offered a compromise. We could do pre-trial mediation. The co-op board president and his lawyer would sit down with me and a mediator and we would hash out a solution. This is exactly what I asked the co-op board for months ago, before they served me. We agreed to a time and place for mediation.
Look at us! We were already mediating.
I was surprised at the tone of the mediation. The co-op board president was angry. It felt like this was personal to him. I focused on ways that would allow me to start paying the monthly co-op fee and have free and clear access to the unit again. The groups separated to talk amongst ourselves and when they came back, the president and his lawyer said “No” to all my suggestions and shoved a legal document in front of me. They wanted me to agree to pay all the money I owed, plus interest, plus legal fees, no negotiation.
I don’t make decisions quickly. I tried on flat cap hats for two years before buying one. It took me three years to find a cardigan I liked. If they thought I was going to sign a legal document in that room without reviewing it and considering its implications, they were crazy.
My frustration level peaked and I turned to my list of grievances against the co-op board.
“Well, it was never disclosed to me when I bought that there was an ongoing lawsuit against the building from the D.C. tax office.”
The co-op board president shifted from anger to contempt. “The big real estate agent didn’t know something wasn’t disclosed to him.” He was mocking me.
The disrespect triggered what I consider my serial killer anger.
The kind of anger where everything is fine outwardly, but deep in your core you know you are capable of doing horrible things. I left a copy of my list of grievances on the table. I packed up the rest of my things and said, “It looks like we are as far as we are going to get today.” I stood up to leave.
If you want to see someone truly lose their shit, pack up your stuff and walk out of the middle of a meeting. The co-op board president went bananas. I told the lawyer I would review the document and get back to him. Then I left.
I went to Tryst, my favorite coffee shop in my old neighborhood, to think. I sat on one of their elegant yet deteriorated couches and contemplated the events from an enlightened, conscious perspective. I had imbued the apartment in 2008 with so much joy and love. It was the backdrop of so many wonderful memories.
In 2011, it was a source of pain, of shame, of failure.
But it was also the catalyst to a new stage in my life. It sent me to Los Angeles. It allowed me to go deeper into myself and my marriage in Australia. It delivered my daughter. It reminded me that in life you will not make everyone else happy. I don’t judge the co-op board president for being angry. That wasn’t really him. He was lovely before and lovely after. I needed him to be angry at me to learn a lesson. I had to feel like rubbish to accept that it was OK to be rubbish.
At the next table, a customer was reviewing their bill with the waitress.
“There is an extra three dollar charge on here.”
“Yes, you added strawberries to your waffle.”
“Three dollars for strawberries?!? I’m not paying that!”
I eavesdropped, as the customer at the other table argued vehemently to be heard. To let the establishment know that she was wronged. To let a three dollar strawberry upcharge ruin her afternoon. It was a mirror for me.
Whether it was three dollars or 26 thousand dollars, you didn’t have to let it fuck up your afternoon.
I signed the agreement with the co-op board to start making monthly payments. I didn’t know where the money would come from, but I trusted it would show up. Over the next year, I paid back every dollar I owed the co-op. The D.C. foreclosure moratorium lifted and eventually my bank took the apartment back to sell to another person. Right before it finally transferred out of my name, I took to my journal to grieve for all the pain it caused me. I let myself know it was OK that things turned out the way they did. I celebrated all the good times as well. Once I emotionally accepted the outcome, the final paperwork went through and ended that chapter of my life.
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