December 7, 2008

• When Worlds Collide

  “Mornin’, Bill.  Have a good weekend?”
  “Ah, Steve, good to see you.  Yes, my weekend was incredibly relaxing. What about you, what’d you do this weekend?”
  “Well,” Steve replied, filling up his cup at the water cooler, “remember I had that court case I had to sit in on for jury duty?”
  “Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right,” Bill, who already had his cup of water, responded.  “How did that go?”
  “It was nuts,” Steve said, now standing fully upright with his cup, “One of the defense’s main witnesses flat-out lied about his relationship with the defendant.  Some fact-checking proved they had played Dungeon&Dragons together in high school.  Once that came out, everyone started shouting and the defense called for a recess and everything.”
  “No kidding?  Wow.  That must have been good,” Bill admitted, until he looked up with a thoughtful look, “Actually, you know what? That kind of reminds me of Tiller vs. Indiana from the Supreme Court.” 
  “I don’t know about that one,” Steve said blankly.
  “You don’t know about Tiller vs. Indiana??” Bill said, looking surprised. 
  “No, how do you know about it?” Steve inquired to move the conversation along. 
  “HA!” Bill blurted out, “Know about it? I wrote the majority opinion on it!”
  At this, Steve’s face, which had been plainly composed while waiting for an answer, turned profoundly confused.  His eyebrows scrunched down and he puckered his lips as he wondered what Bill meant.
  “You wrote the majority opinion?”
  “Sure did,” Bill said proudly.
  “What do you mean? Like, on an internet message board?”
  “No, no,” Bill said, staring off in fond reminiscence of the event, “You see, what made this one interesting was the prosecution’s strategy.  Brilliant, just absolutely brilliant.”
  “What was the strategy?” Steve asked to play along, hoping an oblique angle would reveal what Bill was talking about.
  “Well, every time a witness said exactly what they wanted, they would set off a round of fireworks.  It worked wonders on me and my colleagues.  Really emphasized the point, you know?”
  “Yeah,” Steve said, looking around to see if anyone else in the office was listening to their conversation.
  “They had to stop using them when the animals got loose in the courtroom, though.  They didn’t want any of them to get hurt.  The defendant was a penguin after all,” Bill explained, raising his eyebrows to indicate the common sense inherent in the reasoning. 
  “Bill,” Steve said slowly, as Bill continued rambling on.
  “By the way, if you think the Supreme Court really wears those black robes, that’s just a common misconception.  We only wear those for the yearbook picture.  During cases we wear togas.”
  “Bill,” Steve said again in the same tone.
  “Oh, and if you ever think I’m a dishonest person, let this forever put the idea to rest.  I wrote the majority opinion even though the defense attorney was smokin’ hot.  In fact, I tried to sleep with her after the trial.”
  “BILL!” Steve lost it, ”You are married!”
  At this Bill snapped out of his trance of telling the story and grew a confused face, glancing at Steve. “Come again?”
  “Bill,” Steve said, putting his hand on his coworker’s shoulder, “You didn’t happen to have any dreams last night, did you?”
  At this comment, Bill dropped his cup of water and his eyes grew wide, as though he were looking into the face of eternity.
  “Have a nice day, Bill.  I’ll see you around the office,” Steve said, walking away.

  • 2:47 pm
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