Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I'm Great In Emergencies, It's True!

When my mom, my dad and I were visiting my sister in Florida one Christmas, she took us on a tour of the University of Miami, where she was a law student.

We were walking into the courtroom where the moot court trials took place and as I walked into the room and near the jury box, I noticed an opened bag of potato chips sitting on the railing. Without missing a beat, my sister said, "sometimes, the jury eats potato chips" and we all laughed.

About two seconds later, I noticed some filthy, dirty feet sticking out from under a blanket -- also near the jury box. It was obviously a homeless person who had set up camp in the courtroom while all the students were on Christmas break. What I didn't know was if this person might be dangerous. Because, you see, I was so busy pushing my father (two hands on his chest -- pushing!) out of my way to run out of the courtroom with complete and utter disregard for the fates of my family members, that I wouldn't have known if he was a crazy, knife-wielding lunatic until after all of my family was sliced into bloody ribbons and I was hearing about it on the evening news.

(And to rub it in, not only did all of my family members survive, but re-told this story for years -- as a follow-on to the kitchen grease fire story of '77 -- you know, the one where after the fire was exinguished, they found me three blocks away. The second my mom had said, "fire" and everyone else pitched in to put it out -- I bolted out the front door and just kept going.)

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