Michael and I looked at his
unfinished math homework that’s due tomorrow and I shuddered. It’s an unholy
combination of fractions and decimals. Take fractions and turn them into
decimals. Why? Why is this necessary? In all my years since I got out of middle
school, I have never had to do this one time. Not ONCE. Worse, I am good at
decimals and Mother is good at fractions. We are not good at marrying the two,
and this causes anxiety in us both.
So I told Michael to go in and ask
his teacher how to do this bizarre exercise. When I picked him up from school I
asked him what she said. He said, and I quote, “She said to divide.” Huh?!
“Divide what into what?” I probed. He shrugged. I Googled it. You just divide
the top number by the bottom number. So ¾ becomes .75. Thank God for
calculators. Why did he miss that?? Perhaps the words “numerator” and
“denominator” were too multi-syllabic. He’s only been speaking English 2.5
years.
I just broke out in a cold sweat
looking at “2.5” What if he’s asked to convert that to a fraction?! Unholy pie
charts, Batman!
I hate homework. I thought when I
finished school I’d never have to do it again. If my grandchildren need
homework help I will just hand them a laptop and tell them to Google their
questions. Hopefully they will speak English really well, even if they have to
learn it from a computer.
I actually had to go to a courthouse
today and get copies of pleadings from a court file. I have not had to do that
in years. I have been in corporate legal land, where you sit in a cubicle all
day and try not to go insane.
A courthouse in a small town is an
interesting place. Gwinnett County (30 minutes north of Atlanta) has a pretty
modern, high-tech courthouse. It takes 10 minutes to walk in from the parking
area to the actual door, especially when you walk carefully around the groups
of people smoking. I also had to remember to pull my pepper spray and pocket
knife out of my purse, or I would’ve ended up on the front page of the paper:
“Crazy paralegal tries to get into our courthouse with lethal weapons!!” Don’t
laugh. I imagine strip searches will plague the next generation. (Then again
they may travel without their bodies, so it won’t matter. I like to dream big.)
One of the guards standing at the
x-ray machine looked like my last boyfriend. I nearly slapped him. Thank God I
didn’t have my pepper spray or knife, or the flashback could’ve caused a mental
breakdown and violence would’ve resulted. Then I noticed the guard actually was
much younger than the old boyfriend, and better looking, and had better skin. I
calmed down and thanked him and shuddered as I walked towards Superior Court.
When I first became a paralegal more
than 24 years ago [cough cough, Lord I’m old, cough] Knox County had
just recently opened the City County building, a massive building not unlike
Gwinnett County. The old courthouse in Knoxville was a wooden building, small
and cramped, and delightful, except on a hot day. It was erected in 1885. The new building had all the old courthouse
regulars in it, but they just looked incongruous in the sleek modern building.
Below is the old Knox County courthouse.
I used to be asked occasionally to
go down to the courthouse and look up and copy deeds for property. Women ruled
in the court clerk’s office, but the men ruled in the deed room. The old guys
that oversaw the massive deed books were always fat, balding guys smoking
cigars, who called me “little lady.” I would act helpless and widen my big blue
eyes, and they would do whatever I wanted. Yes, I was once young and cute and I
worked it, baby.
Now everything is on the computer.
The superior court clerk’s office in Gwinnett has computers that legal beagles
like myself can sit there and use, without bothering the ladies who work the
counter. It’s amazing. Then again, you can’t charm a computer. You can’t flirt
with a computer.
Computers make everything faster,
but less fun. However, they don’t smoke smelly cigars…
I once had a young lawyer poke his
head in my office and ask me if I could file something in the courthouse before
5. It was 4:55. The courthouse was 3 blocks away. I just said “Nope, sorry,”
and hoped he wouldn’t fire me. He just glared at me and took off running. He
made it, just in time, and charmed the clerk into taking the pleading he was
trying to file. When he came back I expected him to fuss at me but he didn’t. I
pointed out that he was 6’4 and a runner, and I wouldn’t have made it. I was
young and cute but not athletic. Miss Lilian wouldn’t have let me file that
thing as she locked the door, either. Bob had to go. Even at 22 I knew that.
Now, most courts will take
e-filings. You email filings. Gone are the days of jumping in the car or taking
off on foot at breakneck speed. I used to keep an old pair of tennis shoes
under my desk at every place I ever worked. I was on a first-name basis with
the court clerks.
When I was leaving the courthouse
today, there were two old codgers walking out at the same time, and they
politely held the door for me. Both were wearing overalls, or as Daddy used to
say “overhauls.” I couldn’t recall the last time I had seen someone in
overalls. I sorta wanted to hug them.
Then, as I walked ahead of them, I
heard one of them say, “Lookit the size of the back porch on that gal! Must be
jelly ‘cause jam don’t shake like that!”
[Not really, but wouldn’t it have been funny?!]
This is what I looked like in paralegal school...
