HERSHEY, Pa. — Divorced father of three Scott Timmons is happy he botched his custody hearing, now that his children no longer attend in-person schooling, grateful sources confirmed.
“My god-awful performance in that courtroom that morning was a blessing in disguise,” said Timmons, whose request for joint custody was denied in a matter of minutes. “If I’d shown up to the hearing on time, or done any preparation whatsoever, I’d be stuck at home right now helping three screaming kids log into virtual classrooms. Instead of re-watching ‘The Wire’ and learning ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on guitar, I’d have to spend quarantine babysitting those rowdy brats while they hog all my WiFi. I didn’t realize at the time, but that judge did me a huge favor when she said I was unfit to parent and couldn’t be trusted in an unsupervised scenario.”
Timmons’ ex-wife Linda Yeargin, on the other hand, expressed regret over her aggressive legal strategy in the divorce.
“Sole custody? What was I thinking?” said Yeargin. “If I knew this was coming, I definitely would’ve taken Scott back. There’s no way our loveless marriage could be worse than this. I’m helping the kids with math, cooking lunch, cleaning up after them, and working remotely all day, while he’s posting photos of his new homebrewing setup. That’s bullshit. He forgets to hire a lawyer, and now he gets to be the one with a quiet apartment and a stupid hobby?”
Edgar Ramirez, a family law specialist at Herskovitz McCloskey & Brown, noted that the move to online learning has impacted custody battles across the nation.
“Many parents who would normally want to win sole guardianship of their children are now doing everything they can to avoid becoming full-time caretakers,” Ramirez explained. “Some clients are tanking their cases on purpose, and others are appealing court rulings that they’ve already won. In a few rare cases, couples are jointly forfeiting their parental rights and asking the court to place their children in a state-run facility, at least until around this time next year.”
At press time, Timmons had slept well past 10 a.m., thanks to his total inability to care for the couple’s 8-month-old puppy as well.