My gym trainee and I were emailing about a phone call I had to handle yesterday with an irrate (and apparently deaf) litigant. After I described that I had done all I could reasonably do and the caller was still being, okay, I’ll say it, a bitch, the email thread turned into something like this:

Gym Trainee: That’s when you pull out your magic wand. See if I had a magic wand my arm would be hurting, I would have waved so much already today. Several toads would be sitting at desk and on the counter.
Me: If I had a magic wand, it would have a star on the tip, just because it’s pretty. And you’ll start seeing LOTS and LOTS of people walking around with star-shaped bruises on their foreheads. That’s what I’d use my magic wand for. WAP! Just imagining that makes me feel better already.
Toads, eh? Hmmm. Maybe you can turn them into chocolate. The world could always use more chocolate.
Gym Trainee: ok, they will be chocolate toads with peanut butter filling. most will have marshmallow for brains. the wand can only transform so much, after that is what exists in the real world.
Me: We’re gonna get fat from eating the real-world toads!
Gym Trainee: I’m not crazy about marshmallow so I won’t be eating the brains cause there will be more marshmallow than peanut butter around.
Me: some will have lots of nuts in the peanut butter, too.
Gym Trainee: True, Hummm I didn’t think about that.
Me: you think some would have glass shards in them, too? That may be hard to swallow.
Gym Trainee: Well I can always wave my wand again and smash them. A thick Harry Potter wand so it won’t be too heavy for me to wave.
Me: maybe we can use a thin wand and use it to stab people. or feed the glass to other toads.
Gym Trainee: nope, if you can’t get it together while you’re a toad, you gotta go. I don’t want to overcrowd the toad population. I like rabbits so I thought about turning some into rabbits but, my rabbit is smart so many wouldn’t live up to his standards. So we’re back to toads.
Me: how about just some rocks? like Jordan almonds or something.
Gym Trainee: No, if I turn anybody into a rock it would be like coal, granite, marble, soapstone.
Me: we’ll turn everyone except ONE into coal, and we’ll leave one last person as a person, and we’ll take the coal and shove it up where the sun don’t shine, and get ourselves some diamonds!
Gym Trainee: [much later] I just finished waving my imaginary wand again. Will it ever end?
Me: it’ll end if you wap them on the heads with it. Some people are less annoying when they’re unconscious.
Gym Trainee: [today] that’s what the back of the wand is for. The front is for major change. I was just informed that [another clerk] is out next week. So on top of me waving my wand on her replacement I’ll be wearing a homemade purple heart from all the knife wounds in my back.

I hope I don’t get in trouble for “advocating violence in the workplace”. But I guess I can’t expect everyone to simply know what context to read things, especially things coming from me. My gym trainee apparently read it right, cuz this afternoon during trial, my courtroom door opened, she poked her head in, then silently and quickly shuffled over to my desk and stealthily plopped something down, and just as quickly she raced out again. It was this:


It’s a butterfly top with rotating flashing multi-colored lights, which would leave a prettier bruise than the star I’d originally had in mind. Is my gym trainee not hilarious?