An Amusing Morning

I was caught a little off guard this morning walking into the 177th District Court, where I was assigned to work as Attorney of the Day today.

The media was in the front foyer hoping to get some film footage of a locally high-profile murder case that came in last week, and one of the cameramen asked me: "Hey, is your guy going to come out today?"

Now, by "coming out", the camera man wanted to know if the Defendant was going to actually be brought out of the holdover cell to be talked to by Judge Kevin Fine (thus giving them something to actually film). However, when serving as Attorney of the Day, a defense attorney has no idea what cases he will be actually handling until he arrives in the court that morning.

So, basically, I had absolutely no clue as to what case the camera man was referring too.

"My guy?" I asked him.

"Yeah, the student who killed the homeless man," he told me.

"Am I getting that case?" I asked him.

"We talked to you about it on Friday," he responded.

At this point, I was getting confused, because I'm pretty sure that I would have remembered being assigned to a murder case that I had talked to the media about the previous week. I asked him if he sure it was me that he had talked to, and he insisted that I was.

I was now beginning to think that I needed to enter rehab or something if my memory was fading out that badly.

Finally, the situation was resolved when he said: "You are Ed, aren't you?"

Now, everything made sense, because I realized he was referring to prosecutor Ed McClees, who, like myself, is a damn good-looking bald man.

However, I guess I can now claim that I have been discriminated against by a camera man who clearly operates under the long-held stereotypical belief that all bald men look alike.

Or, as my friend David Hilburn assessed this morning's situation by telling me: "Compliment to you. Kind of a slap to Ed."