Let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the room: I’m crazy...but aren’t we all at one point or another? To be perfectly frank, it takes a certain amount of insanity to navigate through this day and age. The loony toons just manifest differently in different folks.
How do my crazies come out to play? In more ways than you can shake a stick at, but the one I am to address today is Multiple Personality Ashley.
What? I told you I was crazy.
Believe it or not, I am a nice person. I adore my children and my husband. I would walk through fire for my family. I smile and say hello to folks when I see them (but I don’t always see them because I walk around with horrible tunnel vision) and I’ve even stopped and helped a turtle across the road once or twice. I do nice things for people without them even knowing about it.
Although I still persist in my rose colored belief that the world of an attorney is ultimately a noble calling, there are inevitably occasions when attorneys have to do really crappy things. How do I answer that God-awful, trite, rather rude question that I get asked at every single social function when someone discovers that I’m a lawyer?
[Gasp!] “How do you represent someone when you know they’re guilty?”
One of these days, I’m going to snap and answer, “The same way I’d represent you even though I know God didn’t give you the sense He gave a paving brick.”
It’s the way I explained it to a friend of mine who knows me well and appreciates my inner villain: “There are two Ashley’s. Nice Ashley stops the car for Kitty and even takes the time to try to find his owners. Lawyer Ashley would aim for mangy thing and toss the carcass into her neighbor’s yard with the intent to frame him for feline murder.”
The thing is that Attorney Ashley started having a really good time. She particularly enjoyed trying District Court cases against first years and interns. She objected to absolutely everything they said. One of them even cried once. MWA-HAHAHAHAHA!
I will now quit talking about myself in the third person because I have to own my actions. I must embrace the evil. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve gone over to the Dark Side:
1. How do I rate folks? Well, there is the Ashley Council Drowning Scale. If someone I know is drowning, do I like them enough to (a) jump in and save them, (b) throw them a life ring, (c) walk away, or (d) sit down and watch?
2. You know how most folks go to the gym and the beach and look at all of the hot bodies while thinking to themselves, “Oh my Lord, look at them! They are so amazing! I’ll never compare!!!” I say, why make yourself miserable? I go to the beach and pick out the ugliest person I can find and concentrate on them. I find myself feeling right damned fine about myself for the rest of the day.
3. Speaking of the beach, there was a recent incident where I rather shamefully included my innocent 7 year-old in my machinations, but—in my defense—she really enjoyed it. We had our little camp laid out at the beach with our blanket and umbrella and let me assure you that there was more than enough room for anyone and everyone to enjoy a first row seat at the ocean. Some buttheads came and camped right the hell in front of us and it was just such a low rent move. When the time came for us to pack up, we had some leftover snack crackers. Hmmm...
Who would suspect such an adorable child as Baby Belle 1? My precious child aided us as we scattered snack cracker crumbs liberally around their camp. The first in what surely became a legion of seagulls were starting to arrive as we scampered, giggling, off of the beach.
4. Its road rage and it’s bad when everybody else does it, but it’s tactical maneuvering when I do it and it’s perfectly fine.
5. I will send my insane Chihuahua (Desdemona Muffets Council) out into our front yard to yap her little ass off at window salesmen, snake oil grass repair idiots and religious zealots and I thoroughly enjoy the show.
6. I will take the last “whatever” off of the shelf at the store because everyone else is dithering about being too polite and I. Do. Not. Dither. Who has the time?
7. On occasion (okay, frequently), I aim for pigeons and squirrels.
8. I’ve acquired a bit of a reputation for scaring first offense teenagers straight. You know those youthful indiscretions we all made at one point or another where some of us had the good luck not to get caught and some of weren’t so fortunate? I do jail tours and I occasionally resort to opening the blinds in my little bat cave of an office to reveal the corner store and park across the street inhabited by shuffling and twitching individuals looking to score, looking to hook up or looking for a fight as they mumble incoherently to themselves and I say “LOOK UPON YOUR FUTURE YOU HAVE SET FOR YOURSELF IF YOU DO NOT CHANGE YOUR COURSE” in a very “Ghost of Christmas Future” tone. I make them cry too.
9. I ratted out a very bratty UNC-Weed student who was invading my personal space in the grocery line. She was talking to her parents in a very loud tone as she lied to them that she was already home and she was getting ready to go to bed. Accordingly, I rather loudly added, “SHE’S LYING. SHE’S AT THE HARRIS TEETER BUYING BEER.” Okay, so I embellished the beer part.
HA HA HA HA i love you, woman!
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