Monthly Archives: August 2013
Contractions
My wife is complaining about her keyboard on her mini-ipad.
"I can't stand this keyboard! If I want to write a contraction, I have to push another button to go to a different keyboard set just to get the apostrophe."
Perturbed and almost shouting, she continued, " I CAN NOT WRITE A SENTENCE WITHOUT USING A CONTRACTION!!!""
"Hmmm…" I countered. You seem to have no problem saying a sentence without a contraction."
She paused, then smiled slightly realizing what she had just said. Her expression changed quickly…
"Never mind!" as she lifted her keyboard in front of her face, blocking my view of her.
Disorder in the Court
These are from a book called Disorder in the Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place.
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
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ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
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ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
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ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
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ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
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ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
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ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
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ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.
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ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
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ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
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ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
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ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
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ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
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ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral…
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ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
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ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
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And last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
The Impatient Driver
So, two nights ago I'm taking my family to Applebees Restaurant for dinner. We're driving on a residential street with a 35 MPH speed limit. I, of course as usual, was obeying the law. Behind me is a young male driver in his late model sporty BMW convertible only a few feet off my bumper.
I stay the course refusing to be intimidated by anyone, especially by Richie Rich. We pull up to the main intersection and wait for the red light to turn green. Junior, now only inches from my bumper, impatiently revs his engine.
The light turns green, I take a left into the inside lane of a 4-lane main drag, while "Mr. I'm So Inconvenienced" puts the pedal to the medal and shoots past me on the right like a bat out of hell.
Oh! I'm not the only one who is taking up his precious road. Noooooooo! Not far up in front of him in his lane is another car. So he guns it even more and swerves into my lane in front of me without signalling and then right back into the lane in front of the car he just passed.
I turned to my wife. "Wow!" I said. "I wish I could be as cool and tough as that kid and break the law whenever I wanted."
Apparently the cop, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, now racing past me with lights flashing and siren blaring disagreed with my sentiments. Within a few hundred yards he pulled over Mr. Speed Racer.
Another couple hundred feet, we turned into Applebees. As we entered the restaurant door, I could not help but offer a fist-pump into the air accompanied with a big "YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!"
As we sat and ate our meal, I gazed out the window. Down the street, I could see the policeman still writing out a well-deserved ticket. "Dinner never tasted so good!" I exclaimed to my family with the biggest grin on my face.