Lawyer jokes

This is so typical of my father. Every once in a while, he sends me an email forward chock full of lawyer jokes. Now, keep in mind that my father emails me to say "hey, what's up?" about 3 times a year, and he calls about the same. So it's not like we have regular emails going back and forth and then once in a while one of these idiotic forwards. And, I think that he sent me this same forward a few months ago. It wasn't funny then, and it's not funny now.

Here's a sampling of the gems, all supposedly from a book called "Disorder in the Courts," which is supposedly a collection of real courtroom exchanges.

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a
person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it
until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-one-year-old,
how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
_______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you kidding me?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Now whose death do you suppose terminated it?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
______________________________________
--- And the best for last: ---
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law. _____________________________________________


My whole life, my dad was not supportive of my receiving a good education. He fought with my mom about allowing me to take summer enrichment classes. He didn't think I should be in the gifted & talented class. He thought I read too much. He fought with my mom because he didn't think I should get to go to boarding school--not because he thought we couldn't afford it, but because he just didn't think I should get to go. He didn't think I should get to go to a private college--he said that there was no reason IU wasn't good enough for me. My mom always told me that he was just jealous of the opportunities that were available to me, because he'd never had any support or any educational opportunities, and that he was insecure about his own intelligence, because although he is very smart, he's not book-smart. And I never really knew what to make of that--I guess it made some sense, but I just didn't see how my own father could be such a douchebag that he'd deny me opportunities that would enrich my entire life just because he hadn't had the same kind of opportunities.

I don't know, maybe I'm just being too sensitive. But I smell whiffs of that old, I don't know what to call it, oppression? in his sending these stupid emails. I don't understand why else he would send them, I just don't. I mean, the only jokes he ever sends me are ones in which the lawyer is ridiculously dumb--like, on the verge of retarded--and I just have to wonder what point he is trying to get across. Does he really think (a) the jokes are funny, and (b) that I will find them funny? (Am I just being obtuse? Are they funny? Do other lawyers find them funny? Do non-lawyers of reasonable intelligence find them funny?) Why would I find them funny? It might be one thing if they were fictional, and story-telling, in that really good set-up joke kind of way. You know, clever. A joke. But these are ostensibly real-life occurences. These are things that real lawyers have supposedly said in open court, which I admit is both bogus and sad. They are not jokes, in the sense that they display some sort of play on words, or some sort of irony, or some other amusing literary-sort of device that happens to be high-larious. They don't involve farts, or poop, or some other totally infantile and funny subject. No. They only reason these jokes might be funny--and they're not--is because they're so outrageous. They're funny in the "can you believe that Debra Opri actually has clients, because she doesn't know enough not to put her client's money in her own bank account?" way. Like, can you believe that this person is a lawyer? A monkey in a suit could do a better job! Har har har, imagine, a monkey in a suit! In a court room! Isn't that funny!

No. It isn't. Fuck off, and fuck you.

I just don't get why he thinks it's cool to send me jokes denigrating my chosen profession. I don't make fun of him or what he does, and I never, ever have. I don't think it's something to be made fun of. And I certainly would never dream of sending him "jokes" about all the stupid shit that patternmakers might do--look, Dad, what great company you keep! Look at the blazing intelligence and capability of the people who make up your field! Everyone laughs at them! They can't do anything right! A monkey in a mask could do a better job! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Thoughts?

Crunch, Em Effer!

I am so. sick. of the self-righteous bullshit that certain people dish out daily in our bar class. The Shusher turns around and glares at us when we aren't even doing anything--and I mean, nothing. She turned around with her big ol' stinkeye today and my entire row of troublemakers was studiously writing. No one was talking, no one was laughing, no one was farting, nothing. And she glared at us! WTF! N whispered to all of us, "Were you breathing? Better stop!"

So, at the next break, I went to the gas station and purchased a big, crackly, crunchy bag of Doritos. I wasn't hungry. I didn't want to eat the Doritos. But I needed a weapon.

I waited to open the bag until class started again, so that I could take advantage of the stillness of the room. As soon as I did, the Shusher started shaking her head, apparently in disbelief at my gall (hello, we had just come back from break! people eat!). She turned and looked at someone like "can you believe the nerve of some of these people? I know! Awful!" Kept shaking her head and jiggling her knee for a while.

I waited until the video professor paused, so the room was nice and still, and then I CRUNCHed. I know that things always sound louder to me when I'm eating than to other people, because the noise is inside my own head, but dude, this was LOUD. My troublemaking row lost it. J's head went down, N turned sideways and was shaking with laughter, S and M (ooh, that sounds dirty) were giggling madly (but silently! silently!), and I had to turn around to calm myself so that I didn't inhale Dorito fragments. I tried really hard not to laugh audibly, because that would just give away that I was doing it to be an asshole, rather than doing it and just being an asshole incidentally.

Anyway, I kept crunching my way through the bag, trying to wait each time until the professor had paused so that my crunch was extra loud--because, just in case Shusher confronted me, I wanted to be able to bat my eyelashes innocently and protest that I had been trying to make sure that no one missed any part of the lecture because of my crunching.

I made that damn bag last for a whole hour. Hahahahaha!

At the end of class, our video professor was just reading to us the last couple of pages (just a sample exam problem and answer). He was not adding anything new. He was reading to us, verbatim, straight from the page. People started putting things away and murmuring. The Shusher shushed us. I turned to N and we shared a "are you kidding me?!?" kind of look. Then, when I turned back, I realized that the Shusher didn't even have her book open. She shushed the class so that she could hear the professor read directly from a book that she had already closed. Effing a-hole.

Night Children, Part 472.... Thousand.

Cop call #3 has just occurred.

Friggin' kids are out jacking around in front of my apartment, driving Puck (and me!) crazy, kicking rocks, getting perilously close to my amazing, priceless Honda....

Argh.

Update: the cops actually came out! Two cars! They've got flashlights! They caught the kids! They scolded the mom! Awesome! I heard the mom ask, "Is everything ok now?" and the cop said, "As long they stay inside. And as I don't have to come back--if I have to come back, I'm gonna...." and then I missed the rest. I like to imagine he said, "I'm gonna rip their arms off and beat you with them." That would be fantastic.

Oh, and of course, the kids apparently live in the upstairs apartment next to mine--the one with the woman who has that yappy little shit-for-brains white dog--the one she refuses to keep on a leash; the one she lets out to go to the bathroom while she leans over the railing, occasionally says "Mischa! Shush!", and otherwise lets it zip around the parking lot yapping at 2 a.m.; the one that attacked Puck 3 different times while Puck was leashed (and bit him! he yelped! and tried to get away! and couldn't! because he was on a leash!); the one I had to kick to get it off of Puck. I hate that dog, and I HATE THAT WOMAN.

And those jerkoff kids.

Smoothies: blech, I mean, YUM!

I have hated smoothies about as long as I can remember. I always want to like them, but when push comes to shove, I have always thought they were pretty disgusting. Chunky, liquid-y, and dammit, yogurt is just not meant to be drunk!

However.

On a recent grocery buying binge, I randomly thought, "hmm, a smoothie sounds good." So, with doubt, I purchased some ingredients: yogurt, apple juice, various fruits--even peaches, which I normally kinda detest, but which looked really yummy when N was eating them recently in class.

Today I finally decided to make a smoothie, to go along with my complicated dinner recipe of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I busted out the blender (oh I hate cleaning that blasted thing...perhaps that's why I hate smoothies?), chopped some fruit up, dumped a couple globs of yogurt in, and topped it off with a little juice. Whirrrrrr, and ta-da! Smoothie delight. I decided to pour the colorful mixture into a colorful glass, because I need a little cheering up, and then I sampled it. After a few sips/glugs, I thought, "this needs some cinnamon." So I sprinkled a little spicy goodness in, tasted the smoothie again--and lo and behold, that cinnamon was FANTASTIC.

The chunkiness still weirds me out a little, but man, it's really tasty.

P.S. Those peaches were f-ing delicious.

Drama

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sit, boy, sit

I've been working with Puck on the "stay" command for the last few weeks, as it's always been the one he doesn't give two hoots about. Every time I feed him, I make him sit and stay for a period of time--I started with just a few seconds, while I was right next to him, and then gradually moved away and lengthened the amount of time--and then say his release word so he can go eat. That way I don't have to give him tons of extra treats, which is handy since I'm trying to slim him down a little. :)

ANYWAY, I got him to sit about a foot from a full food bowl tonight while I left the room and puttered around in the kitchen for a minute. He's such a good boy.

Isn't this blog exciting? Aren't you glad you're reading it? Oh yeah.

Whee!

I have officially applied for that family law position! Everyone cross your fingers and do the employment dance!

Apply within

Just posted:

Blog-naming position, available immediately.

I officially love the management at my apartment--for once.

I arrived home from my trip to Carmel/Indy this evening, and as I pulled into my parking space, I noticed a folded piece of paper stuck in my door. Probably from management... What this time? A fourth query into whether I was planning to renew my lease? An entreaty to pick up dog poop, because they! are! inspecting! ? I was annoyed before I even got to the door. I lumbered up to the door, laden with my bigass school tote bag, my smaller messenger bag, the purse I borrowed from Other Jane, my sunglasses, my wad of keys, the dress I'd just bought, and a bag of Arby's (well, to be fair, it was just the sandwich... I'd already eaten the curly fries by the time I got home), and I ripped that damn piece of paper out of the door crack. Shook it open, read it as I struggled with my door locks... and started to laugh. I went inside, dropped all my stuff, and read the note thoroughly. Here's what it said:

Dear Tenant(s),

Wapehani Hills has been experiencing a high amount of damage to buildings and to our property by children. We as management must insist that your child/children stay around your unit and parking lot to help control this matter. Also, we can no longer have children roaming the property day and night unattended. Children hanging out and riding bikes out on the main roads is dangerous and drivers are becoming very concerned. We will be patrolling the site regularly. We appreciate your help and cooperation in this matter.

Ok, this is so awesome I can't even stand it. It's fantastic that they're at least saying something about these friggin' night children--although whether they actually do anything is another story. I have called the cops on these kids, who run around, scream (literally, scream), bounce basketballs, ride their skateboards, ride their bikes, etc. as late as 2 a.m. I am not kidding. 2 a.m. And these are not teenagers--I'm talking 6-year olds. 2 a.m. In the parking lot right behind my bedroom. In the middle of the week.

I hate them.

They ride their bikes in the middle of the street and play chicken with cars. I win, though, so that doesn't really bother me. A) I'm in a car. B) I will hit you. C) I do a great "I will hit you" staredown. D) I'm in a car, and I will hit you. E) Alternatively, I will long horn you, and you will be scared. But please do not soil those Hot Topic pants--that's just awkward.

They ding-dong-ditched my apartment the other night, banging on my door loud so loud I called 911. My apartment shook. Puck barked for a good five minutes. Steadily. It scared the bejeesus out of me. The next night, I called the cops (non-emergency line this time) with a noise complaint for the rugrats in the parking lot behind me. A-holes. Two days later, I came outside to find "my dick" written on the sidewalk in front of my apartment in chalk. Lovely little children. Then this past Friday night a whole passel of them went screaming by my apartment at about 12:45. Screaming. And then back. And then back again.

So, yes, I think this letter is great. Except, "we will be patrolling the site regularly"? Really? Somehow I doubt that my landlords are gonna haul their lazy butts into their fat white Escalade and come rolling around the 'hood in the middle of the night. But it's sweet of them to offer.