This dance will hurt like hell.

My boss settled a personal injury case recently, to the tune of about $55,000.00. The settlement check from Geico finally arrived last Thursday. With these kinds of legal settlements, the check that comes in is always made payable to the law firm and to the client, which means it needs to be signed by both the law firm and the client in order to get deposited into the attorney trust account. Our client lives in central New Jersey, roughly 1 1/2 hours away, so we can hardly just ask him to pop down to the office for 5 minutes to sign the check. Far easier to just have us declared Power of Attorney for him, and thus sign the check for him.

Now one would think that having been an attorney for quite some time, the Boss would be prepared for this sort of thing. Like, say, having our client sign a Power of Attorney immediately after we win the case so that we wouldn't need the client's signature on the settlement check. But no.

So we got the check on Thursday and I called our client and told him, and then I faxed him the Power of Attorney so that he could sign it and mail it back, figuring we'd have the signed form back by today (Monday), so we could then deposit the check. Client faxed it back just to let me know he got it and that he had put it in the mail.

But the Boss wanted his money NOW. He says just stamp the check and then sign as Power of Attorney for client, and take it to the bank. Ask for the manager--she knows us; she'll deposit it. I felt rather dubious about this plan, I but said ok and went to the bank.

Surprise, surprise--the bank manager (who made a spectacle of me in the middle of the bank, declaiming the absolute perfection of my skin) said they could not deposit the check without seeing the original signed and notarized Power of Attorney. I made her call the Boss to tell him this over the phone, because I wanted to make sure he got angry at her rather than at me. And then I went back to the office.

The Boss called literally 30 seconds after I got back, and he was not a happy camper whatsoever. So he says grab a new blank Power of Attorney and copy Client's signature from the fax onto the new one. Then notarize it.

-_-

I flat out refused. I know he's my boss, but he does not pay nearly enough for me to go around doing extremely illegal things like forging signatures and misusing my responsibilities as a notary. He can whine and yell all he wants. I am not doing it. 

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I really hope that whomsoever invented cookies is currently burning in the deepest blackest pit of Hell. (It was someone in Persia in the 7th century.) Cookies are like cereal for me--once I start, I just can't stop.

Little Sis made these Nutella chocolate chip cookies yesterday. 

She effed up the first batch, and thus enlisted my help to try again. I made her more or less bow down and kiss my feet and admit that I was correct in my criticisms of the first batch (she cooked them too long) before I would help her. We made more, cooked them for the amount of time I specified, and they came out perfect.

I had been doing so well all weekend. No bingeing; not even a little. But those Nutella cookies pushed me over the edge.

I'm just no match for all the delicious things that were in the house after Mum and Little Sis went food shopping. (We all know what happens when Little Sis goes to the supermarket.) So yesterday, I ate:
- a whole box of Tastykake oatmeal sandwich cookies (Philip J. Baur and Herbert T. Morris better be burning in hell with the Persian Cookie-Maker) 

- 4 Cocoa Pebbles treats 

Someone in the cereal industry wants me dead; I'm fairly certain of this.
- 4 South Beach fiber bars
- 1/2 tub of hummus, with bread and crackers
- 2 ice cream sandwiches
- 1 mini tub cookies and cream ice cream
- 4 GIANT bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios, with milk
- Unknown number of Nutella cookies (10,000+?)
- 2 breasts of a roasted chicken
- 4 roast potatoes with butter
- more cookies
- more cereal
- more ice cream

The only saving grace was the 2 hours I spent on the treadmill and the Total Gym, which burned off about 1,000 calories. There was a Law & Order SVU marathon on the telly, which kept me occupied.

Today, I am fasting. I have had my coffee (40 cals of half & half) so far. I'm not eating again until my stomach deflates.