My Day in Court
Posted on October 20, 2005I went to court today; I was sued for alleged unpaid utilities by my previous roommate. A bit of trivial personal nastiness I will admit; but we most do these things at various points in our lives. After being served the summons, we received a letter from the producers of Judge Mathis offering to let us come on the show; in hindsight it would’ve been cool to do that, but oh well.
We showed up in court today, I wearing a snazzy suit, which I feel I should do more often. We met up with the plaintiff, whom I’ve not spoken with since this bit of nastiness began, we joked around and were civil, but I don’t know if there was underlying tension or not. We were offered a chance at mediation; the lady in charge of that had weird gnarled baby hands that went at a right angle from her wrist, but she could still write and such, so that’s good for her.
The first thing I noticed is that actual small claims court is less entertaining than the courts on tv. Much less. And there was no big black guy serving as a bailiff to hand documents to the judge and such. But we got along anyway. I think everything went well, but we’ll wait to see when the judgement is handed down from on high, or through the mail in a few days, whichever happens first.
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Greetings,
Pretty funny blog. If I had time to read all the ones I liked, yours would definitely be included, but for pete’s sake be careful old friend. You and I both know you meant nothing racist about the court bailiff being black, that you were just referring to how it is in the shows you’ve watched, but there’s a core group of people out there in the world that interpret everything with the word “black” in it as racist.
A: “Hey, I was talking to the black man who shined my shoes today, and…”
B: “Whoa…whoa whoa whoaa…wait a second. Did you say ‘black man’?
A: “Why, yes I did.”
B: “Why did you have to say he was a black man shinining your shoes? Why couldn’t you have just said ‘man’?
A: Because he was black and it had to do with the story I was about to tell…
B: Oh really?! REALLY?! And just WHAT kind of STORY was THAT going to be, huh?!!? You racist pig! I’ll bet it was going to be about how only black people shine shoes and how YOU WHITE MAN are just SOOO important that you need your shoes shined..hey! hey! I know… why not let’s just talk about the BLACK bathroom attended or the BLACK chauffer, or the BLACK BUTLER! Huh?! What do you have to say to THAT you racist jerk!?
A: Well, I was just going to say that my father had taught me it didn’t matter what job a person had, that any job was something to be proud of as was paying your bills. And the ‘man’, shining my shoes was talking to me all the while about a very valuable lesson that just blew me away.
B: Oh, and what was that?
A: Not to waste important lessons on people like you. Have a nice day…
Anyways, you get my point. See, there’s going to be a passerby who insists that not all big courtroom TV bailiffs have to be BLACK. And if you’re smart, you’ll just say, “You know, I never thought of it that way. TV really messes with our minds, huh? Hey, thanks for making me see the whit..I mean light.”
“Light?! Oh, LIGHT?!?! What’s up with LIGHT homie?! Why can’t you see THE DARK?! What is wrong with seeing the DARK?! You DO see it…you DO see dark, it’s just DARK…so what is wrong with DARK!?!?!”
In other words, you can’t win, so when they come for you for the “big black bailiff” comment, just do whatever you can to get out of the conversation as fast as possible. No really. No matter how clever you are, you can’t win….the only solution for mental illness is competent treatment, not witty reparte…so consider my advice carefully, and just be thankful you have been graced by THE SAM FREEDOM PHENOMENON.
Btw, I checked out a few Google Ad sponsors. Interesting stuff.
Very targeted, learned all about the court system. Thanks,
Sam
ps A fr/ee book on how to make money
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I do in fact agree with much of your statements, but I would like to state that my comment about the lack of a big black guy as a bailiff was not a comment on race per se, but rather of the fact that every court show on TV has one, with the exception of Judge Alex, which lacks any kind of bailiff at all. And of course, in the past with Judge Wapner, trusty Rusty was the bailiff, but that was before the big trend of court shows.
As an aside, the country club I work at, with a membership that sits around 98% white, the shoe shiner is an elderly black man.
That happened to a friend of mine a couple of years ago! Except she DID fly out to California (actually to San Francisco, with her girlfriend!) and the girl who had sued her–also an ex roomie–didn’t show up! So she got a free trip to CA out of the deal.
Reminds me of how if you get into a car accident that’s not your fault, you get tons of mail from lawyers wanting you to sue and chiropractors who want you to get your spine straightened.