Patio Pondering: What do you mean you didn't know?
It is the day after the Super Bowl; I already made a trip to the meat locker to pick up venison and am now enjoying a strong cup of coffee as I prepare to attack my to-do-list. Not one thing on that list has anything to do with football or halftime shows, I have real problems to address.
We have to file a small claims case in a neighboring county. Last week I prepared the filing document, affidavits, and gathered every original record I thought I would need. Before making the drive to the county seat, I double-checked the clerk’s website to make sure I had everything in order. I even visited a Notary Public to make an affidavit I prepared “official.”
According to the information available online, I did.
Last Friday standing at the counter, I began handing the clerk my paperwork. She looked through it, then paused.
“Where are all the other copies?”
What copies?
“Oh, you have to have three copies per defendant,” she said, pointing to a one-page instruction sheet sitting behind the counter. “Just like it says on this information document.”
I asked why that document was not available on the website.
She replied, without hesitation, “We keep this here so we can control it.”
What?
It is 2026.
Now I get to make another trip to the courthouse to file the same paperwork—this time with the correct number of copies.
Could I have called the clerk’s office ahead of time and asked? Yes. That part is on me.
But here is what keeps nagging at me.
On balance, I can find my property tax bill, review it line by line, and pay it in full entirely online. No counter. No clerk. No printed copies. No special instructions held behind glass. A process involving significant money, legal obligation, and public accountability runs smoothly at the speed of the internet.
So, what is different in the Clerk of Courts office?
Why can a one-page PDF not be posted for anyone to access?
What exactly is being controlled?
Time, it turns out, is not. Mine is spent making another trip. Certainty is not controlled either; that comes only after a mistake is made. What is controlled is information—and information is power.
Most people will eventually figure it out. Some will make extra trips. Some will take time off work. Some may give up altogether. The system works, but it works unevenly, and quietly favors those with flexible schedules, experience navigating bureaucracy, or simply more patience.
None of this is dramatic. No one raised their voice. No rule was broken.
But when basic information is treated as something to be guarded rather than shared, it is worth asking whether control has slowly replaced service—and whether we notice the difference until we are standing at the counter.