Today’s “lawyer joke of the day” that my judge put on my desk could’ve been a page out of a certain somebody’s certain psycho ex’s personal handbook. I’ve certainly been on the receiving end of such sophomoric behavior:
“At one time there was not only an etiquette of greeting people but also an etiquette of not greeting them. This ranged in degree from the coldly formal bow to the ‘cut direct.’ The cut direct was delivered by looking right at a person and not acknowledging his acquaintance or even his existence. This is no longer done. It has been replaced by the lawsuit.
-P.J. O’Rourke”

I have been text-messaging and checking internet sites through my Verizon Wireless phone in my courtroom. YAY! I don’t have great reception all the time, but it’s 100% better than what AT&T Mobility was giving me. It’s still a pain in the butt to do much typing or web surfing through a text cell phone, so I still leave much of the emailing, blogging, etc. for my home laptop, on which I have learned to truly appreciate the use of a mouse.

After work Mr. W and I went to Costco, where he was stopped by some guy demonstrating and selling his company’s vitamin energy drink. It’s in powdered form contained in cool little portable vials, and you simply pour the premeasured powder into a bottle of water, shake it up, and it supposedly replaces your daily multivitamin as well as your semi-toxic energy drink. It’s a cool concept; too bad the young sales guy was an ass to me. There was already an older white lady in front of him he was talking to about the product, then he got Mr. W to stop. And so I wandered by, joined him, watched the lady and Mr. W get handed drink samples in a little cup as the sales guy talked up his product some more, all the time totally ignoring me. He then opens up another flavor and pours the powdered contents into an entire bottle of cold water, giving a bottle to the lady and to Mr. W. By this time other people had walked by, all of whom received samples and if they like it, he does a full bottle for them. I got annoyed and tried to walk off a few times but Mr. W wasn’t following so I always ended up around the table again. The guy started citing some recent study done by UCLA about sugars and energy drinks or something; I was likely the only person within a 20-foot radius of the table who even went to UCLA. Mr. W didn’t end up buying the stuff, but he also noticed that I had been totally ignored. He brought it up in the car by asking, “Do you think it was racism? Or what was it?” I dunno. But I do know that I can still stand by Mr. W and have people confused about who I am to him, or flirt with him in front of me, thinking he’s alone.

I’ve taken advantage of some of these racist assumptions. I usually don’t get mistreated or anything, people just don’t automatically register that we’re together the way they do when he’s with a white woman, especially one closer to his age. For example, our Lake is private gated residents-only access. We both have a photo-ID card. Guests may enter with a resident, but are supposed to pay $2 per guest. Mr. W had driven up with his white friends before, flashed his Lake ID and been waved through. When he’s with me, if they look in the car, they’ve nodded at his ID and then asked if I had membership as well, so that I have to show my ID also. Well, last weekend we had enough friends over for a lake and boating outing that we had to take 2 cars to the Lake. I did it the easiest way possible to not have to pay: I had Mr. W drive his car with a carload of his white friends, and I sat in another car with his Korean neighbor and Gym Trainee (who’s black). After flashing his Lake ID, Mr. W was waved in with his carload sans question, as I knew he would be because the gatekeeper assumed everyone was family in the car, and when we were stopped, I waved my Lake ID, predicted correctly that the gatekeeper assumed Mr. W’s neighbor is my husband or some other relation, and he simply asked, seeing Gym Trainee in the back, how many guests are with us today to not sound TOO presumptuous. I lied and said one, so we only paid $2 and got 6 guests in.

Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this publicly. But karmically, it rounds out. I get ignored and not offered energy drinks, my friends get free entry for the day to our Lake. We’ve certainly paid enough guests entries for half-hour strolls to have earned some free entries, anyway.