Day 3: Advice For Newbies a.k.a. Suckas

You are given a lot of power and a lot of responsibility on Day 1. Don't abuse it. And don't let the job make you jaded and disheartened and bitter...like I have clearly become. Try to keep your humor...the more sick and inappropriate, the better. And be sure to rip off those rose colored glasses first thing, because when you least expect it, someone else will...

I first started, the thought of going to Court scared the shit out of me. There is a Judge!! And a witness stand!! And bailiffs!! And I had never been in a Courtroom before (besides that whole minor consumption thing when I was 20...but that was just a cattle call bullshit room with 68 other people...Sorry Mom!)  So when I show up to my first hearing, it was with a client who was cracked out of her mind (crack IS whack) heading into her last hearing before we proceeded with Termination of Parental Rights of her four children. 

I still had my rose colored glasses on at this point and so I thought I could "change" her and say something so profound to her, that she would immediately put down the crack pipe, check into rehab, and after thirty days, I would be able to reunite her with her four children running from my car up to her new house she bought with the white picket fence and everybody embracing into a giant group hug with her looking over at me with tears streaming down her face while mouthing, "Thank you". 

Absofuckinglutely not. No sir. In fact, this lady was hell bent on snatching those rose colored glasses off of my face as fast as she could...And all it took was her telling me how she went to the dentist and had her upper four teeth removed as to "service the gentlemen" better. Wait...what?!?! What the fuck did she just say? 

And that's exactly when the Judge called us into the Courtroom. I don't remember what happened in there, what was said, what the fuck I said...ANYTHING. Just that this lady had her teeth removed in order to get money for crack. 

We ended up Terminating this lady's Parental Rights on her four children (and the three children she had after that), but I will always have a soft spot for this lady who took it upon herself to let me know that this shit is real life. Not a Judging Amy or Law and Order (clink clink) episode. And that sometimes the disease of drug abuse is stronger than anything else in the whole wide world. And that I apparently black out if you say some fucked up shit like that. 

R.I.P. Lady & Rose Colored Glasses