So yesterday we had another FT meeting. Two things initially caught my attention: one, our lovely caseworker mentioned a promotion. I’m still wondering why and for what, but I don’t really care.

Two, she actually asked us to introduce ourselves. For the umpteenth time. We’ve only been meeting for SIX months. Holy cow. Seriously.

And of course, the subject of today’s post: follow-up visits.

I said something about being glad to be done with this and she said, “Oh, no – I’ll be coming every week to visit.” Oh, heck no! I told her that was fine, but I wouldn’t be home when she came. No way. Nope.

Now here’s the deal: my son was taken into custody because he was being a butthead. No two ways about it, but that’s the short version. He was taken away in handcuffs, for crying out loud. Both officers who answered that call agreed that this was the proper procedure, because he was the problem.

He declined medical care. Until he was booked into detention. Then he called me to come pick him up. I said no. By the next morning, he was taken into “protective” custody because of 1) the stories he told and 2) his DJO was out-of-town and her supervisor took charge. Now, his DJO has stated that this would NOT have happened if she had been available. She gets him, she’s not stupid.

After a quick hearing a few days later, the judge ordered him to remain in foster care and set another hearing to determine the outcome of the case.

At that second hearing, the judge said that “these parents have done nothing wrong” but ordered my son to stay in foster care, undergo counseling, obtain an education, and so forth; he also ordered that he remain on probation.

Does this sound like a typical foster care situation? Seems to me that the judge gave us, the family, an opportunity to regroup; it has nothing whatsoever to do with my son being “abused” or “neglected” because he simple wasn’t and isn’t.

Yet, merely because he’s in the foster system, by his own actions, the rest of the family must continuously deal with the state’s ludicrous rules and procedures.

The foster system is in place to protect children. This is a child, and I use that term loosely, who needs no protection, although he has certainly caused turmoil and upset for his family. So why continue this farce? I’m quite sure the answer is “because those are the guidelines.”

What are “guidelines”, exactly? By definition, a guideline is a general roadmap to help a person make decisions. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, it’s certainly not law.

Apparently, no bureaucracy can function at all without rigidly following the “guidelines” and interpreting them as law.

Now, since this child does not need protection, and this should have been ascertained and incorporated into the order, why in the world should the Children’s Division need to continue to interfere? I’m sure I don’t know.

And I’m quite sure no one will be able to give a coherent answer. We can only hope that the judge continues to exhibit wisdom, rather than following the guidelines like all the other sheep.

Who the heck ever gave these keepers-of-the-score the authority to make everyone miserable? Where did these denizens of blacklisting get their information? From which cesspool did they first crawl, and how, and why?

Ah, the great unanswered questions regarding the Big Three credit bureaus.

For months, we’ve been paying off debt – mostly medical, accumulated at a time when my trustee decided, in his infinite wisdom, that health insurance was not a viable expenditure as per the words, “health, education, and welfare”. But I digress.

Just as the credit score is inching its way upward, it dropped. Significantly. Why?

Mostly because these places are way too self-important. Are they owned or run by the government? I don’t think so, but there is no information, even on the Internet, about their history or management. It’s quite possible, since they seem to be staffed by idiots, take a lot of money from confused and unsuspecting customers each month, and are hopelessly inaccurate in their collective reporting.

Who the heck gave THEM the right to crawl inside our lives? One theory proposed is that they sprung from the old days of powerful unions and break-your-kneecaps collectors. Possible, I suppose. But no one really knows.

I’d almost rather deal with broken kneecaps.

Let’s look at a few examples:

Your credit card bill is due, say, October 1st. You go online after work, on September 30, to pay the bill. Oops, the company says it can’t possibly process this payment, online no less, within 24 hours, so you can pay a “rush” fee of $12.95, or the payment will be considered late. Yes, it’s a junk credit card, but still – either you pay the fee, or you’re late and reported to the credit bureaus.

Now, credit bureau A will not bother to report that; B will say it was late; C will say it’s on time.

Imagine that you’re on your last, final car payment. You pay it, you celebrate, and then you check your credit report. Credit bureau A says you paid, on time; B says you still owe that payment; C says you owe two payments.

Credit bureau A shows accounts you never owned; B shows the wrong creditors and/or amounts; C has your work history or addresses mixed up with someone else, often an ex-spouse.

Try negotiating with a creditor. They SAY that they’ll remove something from the reports, or not report it at all, but they lie. A lot. Or it takes them two months to take care of it. Why? For heaven’s sake, this is the Internet age!

And why do we have three credit bureaus? Surely one is enough to screw up everyone’s lives, isn’t it? Who the heck is Fair Isaac anyway, and what is his freakin’ problem? Fair, my fanny!