Ever have one of those days when everything breaks? Country lawyers have them too, and enough minor problems can add up to a real crisis. For one thing, as I headed to court in Eureka my '94 Volvo told me that a headlight was burned out. This is the kind of problem you have to solve during the daylight hours remaining in the day after getting the message. The difficulty is that for a '94 Volvo you have to have a special bulb for the headlight. I called the Volvo dealer, on my car phone, got put on hold, and drove out of cell phone range. So much for that call. This happened three times. On the 4th try I learned that the Volvo dealer did not have the bulb. He could order it and within a week it would come in. Fine, if I don't want to go home on days when I'm caught at court after 5 p.m. (It takes 2 hours to get home from the nearest full-service court). Fortunately the service dept. suggested another parts store, and they had the bulb. That same day I was trying to read some cases on Netscape, but the Netscape window moved up and left off the screen. I couldn't figure out how to move the window back fully on the screen and had to abandon the attempt to read the cases. Then, later that day, relatives were visiting. I went upstairs and dressed for court, keeping my coat and tie in a hanger-bag to carry in the car. I carried the bag downstairs and left it by the door, then went out back to say goodbye to the relatives. We talked a minute and I walked around the outside walk to my car and drove off. What's missing from this picture? My suit coat and tie, absolutely essential to court appearances. I discovered this as I approached court, 2 hours later and right on time. I phoned home to confirm that the coat and tie were still in the living room - as if that mattered. Perhaps Mary Alice could fax me the clothing? Better yet she suggested I go borrow a coat and tie from the Public Defender's office. I tried but no attorneys were there - they were all in court. Fortunately upstairs the Conflict Counsel has an attorney who bicycles to work and keeps an assortment of coats and ties more or less in my size in his office. I borrowed one and ran to court. I thought perhaps someone would notice that I looked just like Conflict Counsel, but if anyone did they remained discretely silent.
Did I mention that my Epson printer will not print colors, nor will the software allow me to clean the nozzles? I managed to fix Netscape after a couple of hours, but the printer was still failing to print color even after putting in a new (expensive) color cartridge. It was four days later that it suddenly started working again, for reasons which are not clear to me. Only then could I look around and say "All that I see is in working order." And who knows for how long?
- posted by Eugene @ 4:15 PM