Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Am I talking to myself here?

Sorry for the extended delay . . . I was enjoying some extended time off thanks my wonderful build up of comp time. Now that it's time to get back to work, here's some of my recent phone conversations.

"What's my son charged with?"
"Felonious assault."
"Is that a felony?"

"What's my daughter charged with?"
"The official term is a 'capias,' it's a Latin term meaning to seize."
"What's it for?"
"She did something the court told her not to."
"What was it?"
"I have no idea. Depends on the conditions of her probation."
"That's illegal. You can't hold her when you don't know what it's for."
"I don't know what it's for, but the court does and that's who counts."

"What's my son's bond?"
"He's sentenced to 180 days in jail. No bond."
"Why not?"
"Uh, that's the point of a jail sentence. To serve it."

"My daughter got released on her charge of theft this morning, why isn't she out of jail?"
"She has 6 other pending charges including 2 felonies, one of which is escape."
"So why can't she get out for the morning and come back?"
"Nice try."

3 comments:

  1. I'm a volunteer organizer for a computer-related conference and I'm going through the same thing.

    "OK, do we want to have talks until 6pm or 7pm?"
    "I agree."

    "What's the update on (whatever)?"
    "Group A has committed to do two rooms of things. Group B will get back to me in a week about whether they want one or two rooms."
    "Good, we like working with Group A. Have you heard from Group B?"

    "OK, 2nd time asking: Do we want to end talks at 6pm or 7pm?"
    "Yes, you're right, we should end talks then."

    "Have you tried calling (contact)?"
    "Yes, but there was no answer and the voicemail was full, so I couldn't leave a message."
    "I'll try calling, maybe I can leave a message."

    "OK, Last time: 6 or 7?"
    "6 or 7 what?"


    When I was in high school [back when dinosaurs roamed the earth] there was a mostly-retired teacher who occasionally did substitute teaching for English classes. I really liked her. One day after a particularly frustrating (for her) class I was slow to leave and for some reason she commented to me, "Some days I feel like I just don't speak English."

    I told her, "Maybe they don't understand English."

    For some reason she really liked that. But these days I know *exactly* how she feels.

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  2. The Great. American. Public.

    Sweet yumpin yiminee.

    ReplyDelete