A New Thing

Lest I repeat myself overmuch, this is another rant about politeness and the courts. You may not wish to read further, having read it all before.

Now:

I, in my waiting, have been short of patience and filled with desire to fret. I took yesterday off so I would not chew the head off any small babies, yet heard nothing.

I came into work today...Let's not call it angry, but I wasn't exactly in my happy place.

The morning session started as such things do; with twelve people in the courtroom. Over time, the crowd is added to by late people. People who could not get their act together to arrive on time.

Perhaps as a symptom of my ADD, I detest being late. I spent my entire youth trying to cover for my lack of focus by showing up early in order to minimize the chance I might miss whatever appointment I have. I know this colors my opinion of folks who can't be on time. I figure if you show up late, you should be sweaty and out of breath, having made every motherfucking effort possible to arrive on time. If you can't do that, then at least try and attract as little attention as you can to your lateness as possible, ie sit down and shut the fuck up.

This morning, a frequent flier with the courts showed up late. She's out of breath and reassembling her clothing from the search downstairs, so I am inclined to forgive a bit.

The out of breath frequent flier approaches me.

"Have a seat ma'am."

"I am late."

"I am quite aware of that, have a seat."

"But, I'm late."

I flounder for words, stunned by her tendency to exhibitionism. I mean, I would have been better prepared had she opened her shirt and showed me some skin. She might as well have said, "I am stupid. Look at my stupid. It's my stupid. My stupid is special, see?"

The judge notices, tells her to sit. She does. Court resumes. A few people approach me, get told to sit.

Heedless of the stupidity of his question, an older man in khaki pants and blue button-down shirt approaches me and asks, "Can I ask a question?"

"Sir, if you are here for ten-thirty, you are early," I begin to tell him.

He interrupts with something.

"Sir, court is in session, you can either have a seat and be silent-

He interrupts again.

"Sir, you need to stop and listen to what I am saying."

He rolled his eyes. I am looking the man in the face, and he ROLLS HIS FUCKING EYES!

My Inner Gorilla went from napping to unconsciousness, having slammed itself against the bars so hard and fast that it was lights out.

For an adult male to roll his eyes at another adult male is childish. But for one who wants something from another to do it was...inconceivable. Literally. I had never, in my most fevered dreams of what might be acceptable in polite society, conceived of a sane adult male that might come to believe that rolling their eyes would actually do them a service. I know teens who act in a more adult fashion, even when dealing with the petty requirements of their parents.

Recovering my verbal faculties after a moment of stunned incredulousness. I told him to either leave or sit down.

He left.

A young man comes up on Eye-Roller's heels.

My Gorilla, shaking off his sudden lack o consciousness, snarled, "What makes you think you are any different from that man, sir? Please have a seat."

"I was late."

OHCHRISTYOUPEOPLEAREALLSOFUCKINGSTUPID! My Gorilla whimpers, collapses on his ass, mired in the fecundity of the stupid that places such people in the world to poke me with their stupid.

"Have a seat."

He turns his back, muttering imprecautions all the way to his place.

Eye-Roller returns. Stares.

FUCK YOU, I tell him with my eyes.

He leaves.

1030 rolls in and he returns, waits to appear before the clerk, and requests a continuance.

Looks like Eye-Roller will be back.

Hope he chokes on it.

Stupidity Is A Social Solvent

I rant. My inner gorilla stirs at the stupidity of others. I grow irritated with the bloodless shenanigans of asshats.

Why do I let my blood pressure climb over the colossal stupidity of others?

Because I give a fuck, that's why.

One might ask why I give two drips of ball-sweat?

Because if allowed to run rampant, asshattery will underwhelm all things. Stupidity acts on society like a solvent, eroding all reason.

Perhaps a personal example:

The other day I was riding in. As I rode along the on-ramp, a largish chunk of styrofoam blew in my way. I narrowly avoided it. There was no telling what it might do if I tried to ride over it.

A mile down the road, another piece, this one more easily avoided.

Three miles more, another, this one the size of my rather large cranium. Not so easy to avoid, coming as it did from behind a minivan.

Two more miles, a chunk or two more, this time added to by a stretch of cardboard. Ahead, I see a small red pickup truck. Shit is blowing around in the back, cardboard and the like.

I think, perhaps, this is the person who does not know they have a loose load in their bed. Perhaps, I reason, they are unaware that the cover must have slipped back from their load. I shall try and catch up, let them know dangerous and expensive things are falling from the back of his vehicle.

My reasoning that the individual is merely a hapless victim of circumstance begins to erode upon continued observation of their actions. The man, in his fully loaded tiny pickup, is driving well in excess of the speed limit, and I have a hard time catching up, as I have to dodge the shit flying from it. Indeed, it is not until we reach the tunnel and traffic backs up, twenty miles later, that I am able to catch up to the speeding litterer.

I pull up on his right, seeing the large quantity of loose styrene biker-killers barely held in place by two bungee cords crossing the bed. I advance to beside the cabin. I look inside. An Indian male driver with an i-Phone 4 in hand, glasses on, and earbuds jammed in both ears looks back.

I gesture for him to roll down his window. He does.

I yell to him that he has littered a string of styrene land mines along his path, that he needs to pull over and secure his load.

He rolls the window up. My Inner Gorilla body-checks the gates of his prison, nearly making my eyes explode from my head.

We are traveling at a walking pace, a difficult feat of clutch control for a moto rider without a raging Gorilla in his mind.

I bang on his window.

He starts to shuffle through his iPhone.

Had I my service weapon and cuffs, I would have shown him my star and ordered him to the side of the road. No, I was unequipped to take police action, and therefore couldn't safely take him on as anything more than a private citizen.

I bang harder on the window, my Inner Gorilla barely held in check.

He continues to act as if I am not there. Fucking pussy. My Inner Gorilla howls in impotent rage. I curse, swear, and then fall back, wishing I had a cigarette to drop in his bed. He would surely pay attention when his shit caught fire. My Inner Gorilla wishes for a molotov cocktail.

Instead of the contemplated mayhem, I get his plate.

I ride on. I look for some CHP. No dice. I even check their favored duck blind. No love.

Shit.

I go to work, run the plate. It's still registered to the tow yard where the asshat bought it.

So, nothing else I can do.

So. You might be tempted to ask what the above has to do with my point.

Well, here it is:

Never mind that the litter he left across twenty five miles of roadway will take decades to dissolve into the background of shit we are already wading through.

More important to me specifically is that had I been injured or killed by the debris left behind, my family would have lost their primary wage-earner, and because it would have been seen as a single-vehicle accident, most likely would not have seen a pay-out commensurate with what they were denied.

My wife would surely soldier on, but my child would grow up without her father.

The social fabric of my family would be dissolved. Those who like my company would be denied it.

And even thinking within the least extreme extrapolation on what this asshat did; that of what actually followed these events: I am left so impatient with the average asshat that I barely make it through the rest of my day without biting the head from those whose only crime is to be a moron, or late, or just blind.

All because of the stupid asshattery of one fucktard too cowardly to pull over and cover his shit, a process that might have taken five minutes.

Stupid is the solvent that will destroy us all.

PoT & KoC as Well As Fueled Fear In The Night

So, yesterday I posted that the new position wasn't going to happen. Not that great a disappointment, but swimming the chum-filled waters of the Chief's floor during such a time of 'transition' is always a bit nerve-wracking.

Then, for the second-to-last court session, a regular poker of sticks at my Inner Gorilla, the self-dubbed, "Prince of Torts and King Of Courts" arrived. My Inner Gorilla stirred on seeing him, but not a great deal- the PoT & KoC was found guilty the last time he was in our court, though he left vowing to never do the community service he'd been sentenced to. Of course, he arrived too late to get a continuance and go.

PoT & KoC did come with stick or two, jabbing my Inner Gorilla as he left. Came back. Left. Came back. Left. Came Back. Left. Came back. I lost count.

Still, I managed not to bark at the asshat. Instead I watched as those forced to sit with the man edged away and avoided him as much as possible.

Perhaps a description of the man, that you might feel a tenth part of my pain: not large, not small, mid-sized, with massive feet in outsized tennis shoes. Unkempt hair in unruly kinks, small eyes rendered tinier still by coke-bottle bottom glasses. A voice that attempts stentorian tones but achieves only a mockery of gravitas as it passes bent teeth and slobbery mouth.

So we slog through the calendar having far too many people to see in one hour, our time punctuated by the squealing hinges of the door as PoT & KoC does his in and out routine.

Eventually the pain draws close to its conclusion. I step out to bring the people scheduled for last calendar in. I return to the court to find PoT & KoC standing in front of the counter where the clerk fields requests for continuances after the regular business of the courts.
The judge is calling his behavior into question and he is leaning over the counter, a put-upon expression on his face as the judge tells him not to speak to the staff with disrespect.

The clerk has stepped back from the counter, likely concerned for her safety.

"But I don't want more time to do the service."

"Then you can go home and wait for the letter from collections, sir," I tell him.

"Wha-" he says, turning to face me.

"Either do the service or go to collections," I repeat.

"Man, I don't want to do that," he turns to face the clerk, "Just give me more time, like a year. Six months."

"No, you'll get a month, sir," the clerk answers. It's more than you deserve we all think. Even the people now taking their seats for the last session.

He takes the receipt with the new date, then goes to collect his battered briefcase, pulling files from it. I follow, just to be sure he doesn't get out of control. He waves a stack of paper, turning to face the judge, "Your honor, this has been removed to federal court."

"No it hasn't."

"You must leave, now sir," I say.

"I'm not leaving," he says to me, "Your honor, you must see this," he says.

My Inner Gorilla skins lips back from his teeth and pounds his chest, cheering the challenge.

"Don't make me remove you from the court," I say.

"You ain't putting hands on me."

"Then leave," I am done repeating myself.

"Leave the papers with the clerk," the judge says.

He does as the judge tells him, turns to leave but has to go back to his briefcase. He then trots around the court, looking wildly about, clearly searching for something, "I left a file."

I see the file on the counter with the first clerk. I grab it, "Here it is."

"Gimme."

"I will give it to you outside," I say, walking slowly out the door.

"Gimme!"

"I don't respond well to such demands. Come out and I'll give it to you on your way out."

The Prince of Torts and The King of Courts snarls, pouts, but finally follows. I give him the file on his way out.

He departs.

I return to a quiet courtroom and easy last calendar. No one wants a repeat of the nonsense, and no one is nutter enough to try my Inner Gorilla having glimpsed how tight the reins were held.

We are still later to leave than I am used to, but no big deal. I get on the bike and fire it up, headed home.

I get on the on-ramp where I was almost killed by a gore-cutting motorist last spring, twisting the throttle to get up to speed. This gore is super long, smooth, and ends in a merge at the very foot of the bridge.

At fifty miles an hour, the bike starts to slow, dumping speed at an alarming rate. I twisted the throttle, checked to see I hadn't somehow bumped the bike into neutral. No dice. The bike continues to slow.

There is a tiny emergency lane on the left, and nothing on the right, not to mention my speed is already down to twenty miles an hour and crossing four lanes at that speed would mean certain death.

I head for the emergency lane, barely make it. I smell gas.

Fuck.

I leap off the bike, fearful of flames. I check; no flames. There is a bit of gas on the ground.

I remove my gear and call my friend, a bike mechanic. He tells me it sounds like my fuel line has popped off or snapped, tells me where the line can be located. I hang up, worried that one of the cars speeding five feet from me might take me out. I walk the bike further into the emergency lane and into the better lighting from the upper deck.

It takes twenty more minutes, but I locate the fuel line where it comes out of the tank and into the fuel pump. The line is barely visible between the tank and frame above the engine on the throttle side of the bike. The line has popped off the nipple, spewing gas any time I try to start the engine.

I push the connection closed, barely able to see it, let alone reach it. I start the bike. Bike dies.

Cars continue to roll by. One, driven by a texting moron or other species of asshat reduced the cushion of space in the emergency lane to two feet before swerving back into the roadway proper.

FUCK.

I dismount, jam the line down hard on the nipple as hard as I can given the tight space I have to work in. I start the bike. It continues to run this time. I gear up and white-knuckle it back into the flow of traffic.

The bike continues to run all the way home.

Today, to the dealership.

New Things, Old Things

The new job didn't work out, and I cannot say I am all that disappointed. Things happened at a level I am not privy to and had no control over, and remain changeable. I think this the best result of the situation, and count myself lucky that I wasn't already installed in the job when things changed.

I am not upset, really. The money would not have been missed, but cash is never the reason for happiness, it just lubricates it.

So we remain, my Inner Gorilla and I, attendants to the court.

Ah well. Next crop of asshats inbound. Oh, and pukebucket returns tonight.