So, while I spent a few days in Utah, Michael was sitting through five days of what can only be described as class. He attended a Continuing Legal Education conference in Dallas, TX. Every day, the class would start 8:30 and go until noon; he would have an hour lunch break, continue with the afternoon session, and end at 5 PM. Most nights, he stayed in his hotel room and worked, one night staying up very late in order to meet a deadline the next day. Needless to say, by the time the conference was over and he was getting ready to fly back home, his brain was pretty frazzled. In fact, he had two very un-Michael like experiences that proved how out of it he was. And now, I'll let Michael take over and tell of these events himself because only he would be able to do these stories justice. Take it away, Michael.On the fifth of five days of legal seminars in
Dallas, it became clear to me that sitting for seemingly interminable hours listening to lecturers explain esoteric concepts like “hanging Crummey powers” and “trust decanting” was beginning to take its toll on me.
I began making mistakes…costly and embarrassing mistakes.
When I returned from my sojourn in
Dallas, I recounted to Lindsey two incidents that occurred on the fifth day.
Apparently amused, Lindsey invited me to share these incidents in a special appearance on her blog.
Incident #1
At noon each day of the seminar, I bought lunch on the ground floor of a high-rise office building from a “Fresh Market Café.” Although the portions were smaller than I would have liked, the food was decent, and there were few other viable options for lunch when we only had about an hour allotted for the break. The café was basically a la carte format. Immediately before paying a cashier for their food, patrons pass by two tall refrigeration units offering an assortment of beverages for purchase. By the fifth day of the seminar, my beverage consumption was equally divided between healthy and unhealt…less healthy beverages (root beer). Since I am determined not to become overweight due to the sedentary nature of my profession, I decided that on the fifth day I would select an apple juice, as I had done three days before.
I paid for my turkey sandwich and apple juice and made my way to a table in the atrium area of the office building. I have this strange habit of eating an entire meal before even sipping my beverage once. I followed this habit on this particular day. After polishing off the turkey sandwich, I was ready to savor the taste of my Mott’s apple juice. I twisted the cap just enough to break the safety seal, and then, for some reason, I spontaneously decided to examine the label of my apple juice. As I examined, I made the horrific realization that what I was holding was not apple juice at all. It was Mott’s Vegetable Blend. Basically, it was Mott’s version of V8 juice! I had mistaken the tomato for a red apple (If you could see the two labels, you might understand why I made the mistake. Every other flavor of drink had its own color, but for some reason, both the apple juice and the Vegetable Blend had green writing on the labels. I was a victim!) Among my initial thoughts were, “Why did I wait to examine the label until immediately after breaking the safety seal!?! They will never allow me to exchange it now!” and “Of all the possible varieties I could have inadvertently grabbed!”
At this point, I had a difficult choice to make. Generally, I am an extremely frugal person who does not believe in wasting anything, but I had never before faced a situation in which waste seemed so clearly to be the superior choice. I only eat two vegetables – carrots and green beans (I eat potatoes, but I am told they are actually a tuber). Thus, the prospect of drinking a refrigerated blend of the most offensive of Mother Nature’s “gifts” to us was more than I could bear. As I prepared to discard the Vegetable Blend in disgust, I began thinking about what my wife and mother in-law would say to me if I ever told them of this unfortunate incident (My mother long ago gave up the crusade to convince me to eat vegetables.). Surely I would be told how unreasonable I had been and that I should have at least tried it. In anticipation of their chiding if I did not act otherwise, I decided that I would take just one sip so that I could tell them that my discarding the drink was based on compelling empirical data.
I raised the loathsome Vegetable Blend to my lips and took a sip. What followed was the most adverse response my palette has ever produced. That Vegetable Blend was the most repulsive taste that I have ever experienced in my nearly 29 years, and I have eaten a cockroach (on a dare for which I was to be compensated 100 rubles) and drunk unpasteurized goat’s milk from a Russian goat! I feel that simply saying it was the most repulsive taste I have ever experienced inadequately describes my feelings, so let me state it alternatively: That Vegetable Blend was so thoroughly disgusting that I wanted to force myself throw up so that I could rinse the taste of the Vegetable Blend out of my mouth with my own vomit! Fortunately, self-induced vomiting was unnecessary as I quickly found a drinking fountain where I cleansed…rather detoxified my stained palette as well as possible.
Incident #2
After the seminar concluded, I took a shuttle to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport where I was to fly to Idaho Falls via Denver. I decided I should eat dinner in the airport before the two flights. Since I am a borderline obsessive-compulsive germaphobe, I began looking for a restroom in which to wash my hands prior to my meal. I located a sign indicating that there were men’s and women’s restrooms two or three gates ahead. As I approached the restroom area, something a TSA agent was doing as he screened a passenger caught my attention. Convinced the passenger’s civil rights were not being violated, I somewhat absentmindedly sauntered into the restroom.
Upon entering the restroom I scanned for the lengthy row of urinals one is accustomed to seeing in a large airport’s restroom. Strangely, there were no urinals, only stalls. I concluded that this restroom must be one of those restrooms in which there is a long corridor of stalls adjacent to a similarly long corridor of urinals. Assuming such was the case, I walked over to the next corridor. More stalls! As my pulse quickened, I began scanning the room for confirmatory evidence of my growing suspicion. A changing station! Sure, there are changing stations in men’s restrooms in Rexburg, Idaho because Rexburg is, after all, “America’s Family Community,” and every Rexburg father worth his salt takes a turn changing the baby’s diaper in public every once in a while. But this was not Rexburg…and I suddenly heard a toilet flush in one of the stalls next to which I was standing…then I heard more activity…the kind of activity that often precedes a patron’s egress from the stall!!! At this point I decided no more sleuthing was necessary and quickly darted to the restroom exit.
As I emerged from the restroom, I saw a man sitting in one of those lovely airport chairs, and he was laughing…and looking directly at me. Sensing what was serving as the impetus for his laughter, I sheepishly raised my eyes to the sign next to the door from which I had emerged. Yep. I had just wandered into and out of the women’s restroom. Miraculously, not a single person outside the restroom, aside from the laughing guy, saw me. More miraculously, not a single woman inside the restroom saw me either, and we are talking about the fourth busiest airport in the United States (according to Wikipedia at least)! Now, up until this point I am sure I had looked pretty foolish, but I have to hand it to myself – I handled the situation pretty well after I realized I had errantly entered the ladies’ room. I looked directly at the guy laughing at me. I smiled confidently at him and slightly nodded my head as if to say, “Yeah, so I walked in to a ladies’ restroom, but no one aside from you even saw it and I wasn’t arrested by an air marshal (or one of those pesky TSA agents).” I could see the wind being taken right out of his sales as I strode away from the scene of Incident #2.
Fortunately, I arrived safely in Idaho without further incident. I think in the future I will avoid the five-consecutive-days-of-continuing-legal-education situations. Oh, and it is simply delightful to be back home with Miss Lindsey. (Women readers, feel free to dab at your eyes.)
