At least this means I have good taste in art.

There's a painting hanging in our law office that I really like. When I first started working here, I complimented one of my bosses on the artwork, and he told me that he painted it himself. Apparently, he was an art student before he was a law student.

For the past few years, I have been telling my clients that a lawyer in my firm painted the piece on the wall of the conference room. The casual conversation has always been a convenient ice-breaker. Until today. Today, my client looked from me...to the painting...back to me...back to the painting...and then sighed. It was a loud, exasperated sigh.

"Are you serious?" she said.

"Yes. My boss painted it. He used to paint a lot before he became a lawyer."

"That's a print of a painting by Monet."

Turns out the lawyer in my firm was just "joking" when he told me that.

It was sort of like the time when I realized that the blind man who I'd worked with for 2 years thought that I was black. (I'm not.) And when I gently asked him why he thought that, he said "Someone told me you were."

Okay. Maybe it's not like that at all. But they both just seem like strange jokes to play on a person.

Category?

Don't squint. You're seeing this right.

1) leopard-print push-up bra
2) $30 cash

3) asparagus

If you said Things My Mother Sent Me in the Mail Today...you would be correct.

Best Day Ever.

Jean is going to learn not to mess with me

Dear Non-Client:

Thank you for your unprompted, unexpected call today. I am very pleased that, in your quest to find an attorney, you found my name and number. Unfortunately, I will not be able to represent you.

I am thrilled to learn that you "heard I am the best," even though I am 100% certain that you have heard no such thing. I also appreciate that, 6 minutes into the conversation, you admitted that you were in prison. I don't want to jeopardize our new and fragile relationship, but I already knew that.

Some people can always tell when it's about to rain. I can always tell when a phone call is originating from a state correctional institution.

I appreciate how thoroughly you have considered your legal options. You want to sue the Department of Corrections for $100,000 because you almost swallowed a chicken bone that was hiding in your soup, but you would settle out of court for $50,000 and immediate parole. You would also give me, your attorney, 15% of any amount won.

I like your enthusiasm, but I love your generosity.

I also appreciate that you're looking at this realistically. You told me that you know the immediate parole might be a "pipe dream" but wanted me to "sound them out on it all the same."

I've done a number of things as a lawyer that I have found to be humiliating. I have asked 7 hours worth of deposition questions about a used condom and errant sperm. I have pulled aside an attractive prosecutor to have a hushed conversation about what, exactly, constitutes "manual genital manipulation" in a prostitution case. And I have watched, with my boss, a crude homemade sex video to determine whether my client was conscious during its taping.

But I'm not asking anyone...I mean anyone...to let you out of prison because you found a bone in your chicken soup. Not even just to "sound them out on it."

I'm very sorry, and I wish you the best of luck. What's that? Can I refer you to another attorney? No, no...I'm afraid I can't. Oh, wait. Yes. As a matter of fact, I can. Call Jean. Here's her office number. And her cell. Make sure you tell her I sent you.

Best of luck,
Unfortunate Lawyer

O

Ouch! I just punched a baby!

Spite.

Troy had another fit of misplaced rage on Tuesday night, watching primary results come in. Something about Hillary not doing as well as he would have liked. His anger would be better aimed at a more devoted Obama supporter...not at me. Sure, I voted for him. That was, like, 4 months ago. I've bowed out of the action since then.

Troy started yelling at me that he wants Obama to win the primary, so that when John McCain beats him in the general election, Troy can call me from the train station -- dirty, beaten, and starved, his gold fillings ripped from his teeth, finally down to his target weight of 98 lbs, ready for shipment to Canada with all the other homosexuals -- and say, "I told you so."

I bet if you survey voters when all this is done and ask them why they voted the way they did, there's going to be a surprising number of people who say: Spite. I voted out of spite.

It's only Wednesday

...but I just sprinkled a fair amount of non-dairy creamer onto a grapefruit in my office kitchen.

A named partner in my law firm watched me do it. He then observed as I rinsed it off, replaced the creamer with sugar, and slipped out the door without a word.

I bet he's spent at least 10 minutes this afternoon considering what comparable errors I could be making in the courtroom and double-checking my malpractice insurance policy.

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter was melodramatic.

Justice Frankfurter was mad as a hornet in 1946, when he wrote a Supreme Court opinion saying that a fraud had been practiced on the Court and "the very temple of justice had been defiled."

I haven't read all the details yet, and I can't promise that when I do, I'll read it very thoroughly. But dancing in my head are visions of lawyers armed with water balloons, spray paint, and full bladders in the chambers of the US Supreme Court. Anything short of that just makes him seem overly theatrical.