This Will (Probably) Only Be a Slight Interruption in Your Normal Blog/Blawg Programming
Late, yet again. For those readers that wait with bated breath every Wednesday for my newest blog (if you even knew that Wednesday is our official deadline), I apologize. I have no excuse for my general tardiness, merely an over-developed and occasionally dysfunctional system of re-prioritizing and procrastinating. But in almost two years, blogging about my law school experience has yet to fall by the wayside. And this week is not the week for it to start.
Well, sort of. This week I am determined--DETERMINED, I tell you--to write about something other than law school or the law. Or being a lawyer. Or applying to be a lawyer. Or even being in court. No, law school and the law permeates so much of my life--so much of law students' and lawyers' lives--that I am often given mandates at parties to not talk about the law. Not about class, not about legislation, not about representing people in court. Of course, when you spend almost every waking hour for nigh three years of living and breathing the law, it is somewhat understandable that there is a difficulty to detach.
After sitting at my computer for a good ten minutes, trying hard to come up with something other than the law to discuss, thinking things like, "Dear lord, hopefully I was more interesting than this before law school. Hopefully, I had awesome, riveting things to talk about before I only spouted statutes, cases, rights and reasonable standards," I decided that what is needed--what the world needs--is comedy. Good old-fashioned, satirical, offensive comedy.
However, this being a school-sponsored blog, offensiveness and ribaldry is probably not the way to go. No matter how funny. So, instead, here's a story. If you find it even marginally funny, I can be hired for birthdays, weddings, bar/bat mitzvah's and the like. Just contact me through the comment system below.
Note: Offensive jokes cost more due to the liability of people throwing things at me and the general damage to my public character and reputation.
As many readers likely know, I have a Great Dane. Emmitt is a massive dog both in proportions and personality. He turns five years old next month (about 1/2 to 3/4 of a Dane's average lifespan), but is still very much all puppy. Emmitt weighs in around 140 lbs., but the ridge of his back comes above my kitchen counter tops. In short, he is a pony. A pony that quite naively believes every living creature is his friend.
Taking Emmitt for walks is always a publicizing event. As one cannot help but notice him--nearly three and a half feet tall at the shoulder and dark grey with splotches of black all over his coat and milky white feet--people often stop to gawk, ask if I have a saddle for him, ask if he's a horse. People even stop in traffic. It doesn't help that an extra-tall Great Dane can put his face in your face without jumping, and is not afraid of cars.
One day, I'm walking him through the neighborhood when we happen upon a woman taking her four-year old daughter for a walk. The woman asks what kind of dog he is, and then if her daughter can pet him. "Brave," I think to myself. Most people admire/stare/study from a good distance. I make Emmitt sit down. He's a smart, gentle dog. He took to training real easy and complies. As he sits there, just about eye to eye with this little girl, she starts petting him on the head and cheek with an open, stiff palm. Almost an abrasive rubbing, like someone who doesn't know how to softly pet. I figure, what the heck, it's a little girl and she's enjoying herself. Emmitt is a good sport.
Then, as she continues to pat at his face, he looks up at me confused. Then back down at the little girl. Then up at me, then back down. He seems to not be sure what exactly is going on. Suddenly, as she continues to pet away, Emmitt raises a paw and punches the little girl right in the face.
It wasn't malicious, or even playful as I've seen him do with dogs. He stayed seated the entire time. Emmitt raised his paw and mimicked the four-year-old, patting her in the cheek just like she kept doing to him. He literally mirrored her movement back. I think he thought that's what he was supposed to do.
I, however, freaked. I was positive the mother was going to sue me, call the police, get angry and yell. After all, when we picked her little girl up off the ground she had a slight abrasion on her cheek where my dog had just Jack Johnson-ed her.
The little girl never cried, the mother laughed it off (laughs which I returned nervously), and then finished their walk. I apologized again and then Emmitt and I high-tailed it out of there. We now live 750 miles and seven states away.
My dog punched a four-year-old in the face.