The day Chris went to court and the week of oddity and non-torment

No, I wasn’t under arrest because I accidentally pushed an old lady down a flight stairs.

It was an old man. Hah!

Jokes aside, I went to court for the first time in my life to settle a few family matters last Tuesday. (On Monday, I went to the dentist’s five years since my last visit. The dentist said my teeth were nice!) Again, nope, none of my relatives are dishonest enough to commit CBU. It’s funny that when you say you have to go to court, people would either assume you’re going there to:

a) Free an incarcerated cousin who was at the wrong place and time or

b) You’ve been charged with possession of some funny-looking toys. And I don’t mean the children variety.

Funny how much Law & Order re-runs can affect the mind.

Located at the other side of the world where I live, the journey to court took approximately an hour. My family and I arrived two and a half hour early. The case itself? Let’s just say that my warm-ups take longer (read: not that long at all!). It was that short! Only my sister was required to be present in front of the assistant to the judge person, and there I was with my mom, all dressed up nicely and smelling of food (the cafeteria food was horrendously pungent). All the worry, all the doubt and all the sleepiness (we all woke up at 5 a.m. to beat the dreadful morning rush) was gone in three minutes. By then I was hungry and strangely craving for a burger.

While waiting for our lawyer, I dozed off. In a really small and smelly chair. If you must know, I’m training myself to doze on command. I did wake up sporadically to shift my position lest I want my neck to be in a 44 degree angle for the rest of the day. I also saw my first prisoners. They were chained with the police were escorting them. Behind them all, were the families of the accused, solemn and silent. It was at that point that I said to myself, luckily I have a job.

As were heading home, when things look like they were getting brighter, (the weather certainly did) we got into a massive traffic jam. Fate sure does have a wicked sense a humour.

Went back to work on Wednesday, and while everything seemed familiar, they also seemed out of place. For example, the laptop where I do my work. The keys were all there, none of them missing (why would they go missing in the first place?) but hitting them felt weird. I’ve been working almost non-stop since the New Year, covering all the public holidays since. So to take two days off and coming back felt irregular.

Thursday came and just as I was about to finally settle down and get back into the (torturous) groove of work, I was hastily called into training. As one by one the initial participants pulled out, others (the ones with not much work, hehe) were called into the board room to replace them. Since the training lasted two days, out of 3 days I was in the office, I only did a day’s worth of work. Those who attended got free lunch (read: fast food, urghs) and two days of non-work. Our 10-minute breaks were actually 15-minute breaks. We laughed and joked even though the trainer was a very nice old woman but I knew that if we were overly enthusiastic we would suffer the wrath of a nefarious sorceress. I must lay off the fantasy books, I know.

And what was the training all about?

Professionalism.

It was a very tiring week, what with me driving all over the damn country and then getting work done and clearing some more family matters. The only thing that could make it better would be a date with Kristen Bell.

Yeah, right! Have a great weekend, y’all!

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: Manchester United better win it tonight. Or else I’m going to be really, really upset next week.