HOOTERS...for the wings.

I met a pal and his most recent target at a Hooters bar a couple of days ago. My pal thinks I am a snob, and that may be, but that is not the reason I have never been to a Hooters before.
If I want a beer, I am not likely to trek to the neighborhood by the Boston Garden to get it. This evening, however, I wanted a change of pace, so I suggested we meet at our local Hooters. He brought the target, a young lady who enjoys both the wings and the breasts that you get there. If you have never been there, here is what you need to know about the Hooters on Friend Street:

1. They don't serve liquor. I ordered a ginger ale and a whiskey. The waitress said that they don't have ginger ale or mixed drinks(?). I said, "OK, then just the whiskey." She said that they don't have whiskey, either. Mmm, I thought. "I'll have a Coke, then." "OK, one Bud Light?" "No, a Coke please...."

2. The wings are not very good, at least compared to a place that make good wings. The onion rings are not very good, either.

3. Hooters are good, and here I mean the noun, not the chain. The fact that Hooters has hooters is great, but hooters are good under any circumstances, in any establishment, in any weather. Yayyy, hooters!

4. Nylon stockings, white socks and sneakers remind of a girl I met in eighth grade. Orange nylon shorts speak for themselves.

5. Like NASCAR, Walmart, professional wrestling, and other white trash culture, Hooters has a place in the dichotomy that is modern American life. Where else can you bring your 11 year old son before the basketball game, have crappy beer, and ogle 21 year old girls spilling out of their tops, all before going home to catch some porn on cable?

Again, nothing law related here, just a musing.

It's just wrong.

It's just wrong that you can buy a bagel with chocolate chips in it. And it is wicked, super wrong to have it toasted and then to put butter on it.

It is just wrong, but it is friggin' good.

Seats.

I ride public transportation to work. I prefer to give up my seat if someone else needs it, but I hate when I give up my seat expecting a lady or older person to get it, and then have it taken by someone even younger than me, usually wearing Puma track shoes and an I-Pod.

So sometimes I just stay seated, and then like Mersault in The Stranger, I feel as though I am on trial, and all the other passengers are judging me. "Why is that able bodied man sitting, when so many women are standing?" There are very few older people on the trolley I ride, so it is extremely rare that an older person would be left standing.

About a month ago two ladies who one suspected don't regulary commute got on the trolley. One got a seat, the other prefered to sit in the stairwell. They were experienced drinkers. An odor of stale cigarettes, liquor-permeated sweat, and desperation accompanied them. I would have happily given one of them my seat . One of them produced a bottle of vodka and in an Irish whisper said, "Remember back in the day when men would give up their seats for ladies? Man! And no one smiles!" Well, I thought, we don't smile on the 7:30 trolley because we are going to work, not to a government office to get an increase in whatever benefit program we are enrolled in.

This has nothing to do with being a lawyer, pissant or otherwise. It is, however, the only creative writing I will do today.

Day 2

Good Morning, Friends. Nothing new to report, but I am certain that by the end of the day, something will occur that requires a post worth reading. Check back in around 8:00 P.M.
PL

Pissant says "Hello!"

Hello. I am a lawyer. I work on small matters. I work alone. I have no buffer between the world and me. I answer my own phone. I read faxes as they arrive. I return calls promptly. I do a good job, but there is stress. The majority of my work is with others who are not lawyers. Accordingly, I have to talk to people from all walks of life. Some are sophisticated, some are not. Some are smart, some are not. Some are what we would refer to as...fill in your own euphemism. There are so many that fit.

The title of this blog comes from my prediction that sooner or later I will be in the process of explaining something to someone who will respond by calling me a "pissant lawyer." I have to explain a lot of things that are trivial, arcane, don't make sense in the common, every day world. But these things are important to the people doing the transaction, so they have to be done correctly. Here is an example: I represented the home seller. The buyer said that the seller was going to give him back $20,000.00 after the buyer bought the house. The purchase and sales agreement does not address this matter. I tell the buyer that we cannot do that. He says, "But that is the agreement." I say, "Not in the copy I have." He says, "Yeah, but that is the agreement." I tell him that the agreement is the written agreement, the one I have in my hand, and it says nothing about a rebate. He responds, "Yeah, but that is the agreement." Then his lender calls me and says, "Why are you causing a problem?" I say, "Your guy thinks he's getting back $20,000.00, but the purchase and sales agreement does not say that. " And the lender says, "Yeah, but that is the agreement." I remind the lender that what he wants them to do is illegal and unethical. He says, "I don't want to know nothing about their side deals." I say, "There is no side deal." The lender's lawyer says the same thing, that I am holding up the deal, when in fact, I am making it happen per the agreement, on time, and legally. But to all these people, I am the problem.

I thought of calling this blog "Fixing Toasters". When one of the justices on our state supreme court was nominated, someone dragged out an old speech of his in which he said that lawyers who went to a certain well known law school should not be doing work with legal services agencies that help the poor. After all, he said, "MIT graduates don't fix toasters", or words to that effect. Well, I fix legal toasters. Small, not cutting edge, not end of the world legal matters that are important to the individuals, but not to the rest of the world. If you like "Fixing Toasters" better than "Pissant Lawyer", let me know, and I might change it.