It Takes Willpower to Write A Will

 

About 10 years ago, Life in the Boomer Lane had a will crafted, along with whatever other docs the attorney suggested. She was very proud of herself for having taking the Big Step. Now Husband also had a will that he had made long before she met him.  This consisted mainly of “Bob gets the boat.”

For the next ten years, it bothered LBL that most of the sales contracts she saw had people listed as “The Blah Blah Blah Living Trust,” and her will didn’t.  It didn’t bother her that Bob was getting the boat, but she suspected that Now Husband’s will should have been a bit clearer about everything else. For these reasons, she declared that they were going to go to a lawyer and have their wills revised.  Now Husband thought for a moment and said, “Right. Maybe I shouldn’t leave the boat to Bob.”  And so it was decided.

The attorney was wonderful.  He explained every facet of estate planning in meticulous detail, so thorough, in fact, that after about an hour, LBL could think of nothing other than wondering why there was no candy dish on the conference table like they had in settlement offices. She spent the time vigorously nodding her head as he spewed his legalese.  She was unconcerned that she wasn’t paying attention because she knew that Now Husband would be mentally recording every word.

After about 90 minutes in the attorney’s office, LBL and Now Husband had been divested of a couple thousand dollars and told that they would be receiving review copies of their wills in the mail.  When they were at the elevators, LBL asked Now Husband if he had followed everything the attorney was saying.  His response was “Maybe I should just sell the boat and not worry about dumping it on Bob.”

A couple of weeks later, the wills and numerous addenda arrived, all stamped “DRAFT” in large red letters. Excited to be able to review the docs, LBL placed them on the family room coffee table.  This is where they sat for about a month, while life continued all around them. Tiny splashes of coffee eventually appeared on them, as well as several popcorn kernals.

Every once in a while, either LBL or Now Husband would look at the pile and say, “We should review these.” LBL could swear that the word “DRAFT” was getting incrementally larger as the days went on. Finally, after a month, in the five minutes they had before leaving to meet friends for dinner, they reviewed the docs. There were some glaring errors.  “Why is half of my estate going to someone named Mustafa Meta?” LBL asked. Now Husband’s response was “They didn’t put anything in here about my boat.”

LBL called the attorney’s office with all of the corrections.  A new DRAFT arrived and took its place on the coffee table. New errors were found. Now Husband declared that he didn’t want a Trust after all and wanted to go back to his original will.  Another phone call was made to the attorney’s office.

LBL and Now Husband are now awaiting the latest DRAFT to arrive. The coffee table looks incomplete without the stack of papers. LBL is hoping that more revisions will not be necessary and that whoever Mustafa Meta is, he will never find out how close he came to inheriting half of her estate.