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?