So Very Tall

Since my clients are incarcerated, I have to get a special court order to have them transported to court. They can't just drive on over being, you know, locked up and all. Well recently one judge has been giving us gruff about having inmates brought into court. The clerk usually circumvents this judge by issuing my orders himself. So when I went to the court with my request, not in a suit, but in regular casual work attire, I was expecting to have the clerk come out, sign it and send me on my way. Wrong. Due to a weird turn of events, I ended up arguing my request, in the clerk's office, over the speaker phone with the judge, in front of a life-sized cardboard cutout of Derek Jeter. Let's break this down.

I was standing, talking down into a speaker phone, while the clerk was sitting at his desk, picking his teeth, watching me. Bad.

I was arguing this motion, wearing slacks, a glorified tee shirt, sandals, and my nicest (a cashmere wool blend) winter coat which 1) did not go with the rest of my outfit and 2) I had buttoned all the way up to hide my tee shirt, despite the fact that I was wearing OPEN-TOED SANDALS and sweating! Badder.

Derek-freaking-Jeter was looking down on me while I did this. Baddest.

Now don't get me wrong, until I found my love stud Hideki Matsui, I was all about Derek. And I still love me some Jeter. So long as the Jeter is in the proper environment ... a baseball field, a television commercial, a late-night fantasy. The Jeter should not be in a court house office. Further, there is something really disturbing about a grown man having a life-sized cardboard cutout of another man in his office. I have since learned that these things have names and are called "standees." But just because there is an actual name for them doesn't make them any less disturbing.

It isn't like the court clerk is some fourteen year old prodigy who is using his huge intellect to sign court forms. No, he is a grown man, a very nice, seemingly smart man, but a grown man with this standee in his office! Now my husband, he thinks this is not so odd. My husband, he is wrong. People, the Jeter standee was taller than me! I'm 5'9". I swear, it was all of his six feet and three inches! It was grinning. It had a bat.

In it's defense, it also had some good karma, because I got my order as well as my own special procedure for future cases which will enable me to avoid the grinning Jeter standee in the future. Maybe I need to knit the sideways socks with the Jeter, you know those socks could use some good karma!