Lawyer Boy Represent

As you may remember from my epic and indignant whining, on the way to the beach for Memorial Weekend, I got my first ever speeding ticket while most definitely NOT speeding through Prince "Deliverance" George County, Virginny. In lieu of showing up at the courthouse to shoot my mouth off inappropriately, I was given the option of pre-paying the fine and going on about my life, having coughed up one hundred and six of the most unjust blood dollars ever in the history of moving violations. This inherently involved an admission of guilt to a heinous crime that I knew that I hadn't committed, and I was not okay with being swept away in that grave miscarriage of justice.

I'm also married to a really belligerent attorney.

Before you picture me sailing into the courtroom surrounded by a million dollar club of slick defense sharks, throwing gems like, "if the speed trap was shit, you must acquit!" at the starstruck jury, I have to confess...Lawyer Boy is a real estate attorney. He's in front of a judge about as often as I'm on stage at the Kennedy Center shaking a tambourine behind Yo Yo Ma, so having him represent me in such a high-stakes legal matter was a slightly precarious gamble. However, he really wanted to get into open court again, and I really didn't want to stroke a fat check to my BFFs in Deliverance, so we opted to appear in court.

The first thing LB did in representing me to the highest extent of his ability was, naturally, to call the Commonwealth Attorney's office and try to sweet talk our collective way out of it. The Commonwealth unfortunately felt that habeas corpus was all there and my mens rea was perfectly capable of standing trial for the e pluribus unum crime of speedius ticketorium, so there was no bribing the law with a box of cookies in this case. However, thanks to his winning combination of crazy-good legal skills and outrageous charm,* LB was able to get the Commonwealth to agree to a plea of "defective equipment," which as I understood it, meant that I would stand up and claim that my defective foot was responsible for how hard it was pushing down the gas pedal. Perhaps, in furtherance of my claim, I should limp into the courtroom, dragging my pointy-shoed defective foot behind me. With this deal secured, all my cracker-jack legal team and I would need to do would be to breeze into the court room and yell, "defective equipment, Your Honor!" as we continued on our way over to the cashier's window to pay the fine. Why even take a seat if it's that easy?

This seemed a bit too easy to me, frankly, but the entire goal of this legal operation was to keep my insurance rates from going up, and claiming a defective foot would swish the ball right into the goal, so I took the morning off and practiced my best contrite yet angelically unaware face.

In the few days leading up to my trial, another attorney I know did everything in his power to convince me that the end of my court appearance would find me dangling from the stocks in the town square, having been sentenced to three days of public humiliation for inadequate representation by a real estate attorney. The Commonwealth would have no record of my plea. LB would have no idea what he was doing. The judge would be cranky after his wife accidentally scrambled his over-easy eggs, and he would find no sympathy in his heart for my defective limb. I would have to hang like a wet sock from the stocks and, to fulfill the "public humiliation" portion of my sentence, I would be forced to do so wearing the same clothes I wore to frat parties freshman year of college.

ALL WOULD BE LOST, Y'ALL.

The morning of what could potentially be my last day of freedom from platform shoes and Pussycat Doll-worthy eyeliner, LB and I got up early and put on our most responsible-looking outfits--the ones with matching creases in the pants and big, innocent doe eyes. We got into the car, me at the helm, and it occurred to me that I should take extra precautions not to speed, since it would be the height of irony to get a speeding ticket on the way to try to get out of a speeding ticket. I crept down I-95, nervously watching the other cars fly angrily past me, trying to hide my face from the glares of the other drivers, and telling myself that the middle finger is the new thumbs-up. After heading farther off 95 than I knew was possible without dead-ending at the Clampett's cabin, we finally arrived at the Deliverance County Courthouse.

Would you believe they had electricity out there? The court complex, built with the money collected from other unjust speeding tickets, was actually quite lovely. I had pictured a wooden structure on par with the courthouse in The Crucible, the judge glowering at me through the smoke of sputtering candles and the screams of the demon-possessed teenage girls. As we were unable to find a hitching post, we parked our wagon in the lot and headed inside, where LB quickly found my name on the docket.

As we waited in the hallway outside the courtroom, I looked at my attorney, so handsome in his suit and--oh, what is that?! A hair had fallen out of place and across his forehead, giving him more the appearance of a rakish college boy than a responsible attorney. LB saw me looking at him and smiled at me. I reached up and gently brushed the hair back into place. Without breaking his smile or moving his lips, LB hissed at me, "Do not do that in here. I'm your attorney right now!"

Well, pfft, fine. I can't help how cute my counsel is, is all.

We were finally called into the courtroom to stand trial along with the rest of the accused. As we waited for the unwashed pandemonium to settle into order, I busied myself with my favorite activity: shameless and unabashed people watching. LB and I were truly an anomaly that morning, in that we were neatly groomed, clothed in business attire, and in comparison to some of the other guest stars, we were just plain fully clothed. As the carnie folk and Clown College waitlisted applicants milled around us, I noticed all of the attorneys filing into a room behind the judge's bench. I nudged LB. "Are you supposed to be in there with the other attorneys?" I asked, concerned.

"Nah," he replied. "I don't know why I'd need to be."

The bailiff stepped out of the secret negotiation chamber and read from a piece of paper in his hand. "Attorney Thoreau?" he called out. LB and I perked up like cats in front of a fishtank. The bailiff motioned for LB to follow him, and my legal counsel, my representation, my only slight chance of not spending three days locked in the stocks wearing a tie-back shirt, disappeared into the negotiation chamber.

ALL WOULD BE LOST, Y'ALL.

I barely had time to think about the most effective way to panic mindlessly when LB and the bailiff emerged from the secret chamber. They walked straight across the court and out the door marked EXIT. Commence mindless panicking, STAT!

Half a second later, and just before I would have started unbuttoning my shirt to represent myself with the time-honored Massive Cleavage Defense,** LB popped back in from the exit and motioned for me to join him. Forgetting all about limping dramatically on my defective foot, I bolted for the exit faster than I had bolted through Deliverance County on that fateful trip and darted through the door.

"What's going on? Why aren't we in court?" I asked, half relieved and half concerned that I had already been found guilty behind my back, which would still be better than a variety of other things that have happened behind my back in the past.

"They're trying to clear out the docket to move the schedule along. They had the Commonwealth Attorney and I agree in front of the judge that we had reached a plea deal, and the judge gave his approval. We can just pay the defective equipment fine and go." He pulled out the checkbook.

"That's it?" I practically fell over from shock.

"That's it. We can go now."

I was so excited I was practically giddy. In no time at all, we were out of the courthouse and back to the car. No jail time! No stocks! No skin-tight black pants melting to my butt in the blazing summer sun! Justice had been served!

My only regret was that I didn't get to watch LB morph into Matthew McConnaughey in A Time To Kill, pacing about in front of a jury while sweat poured from his head as he furiously defended my honor, rolling up his sleeves and gesturing emphatically to my defective foot.

But seriously? No objection, Your Honor.

*I am in no way biased.
**Which I am, in reality, physically incapable of, um, mounting.