Cole’S Law Blog

Cargo shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt. That was my wardrobe at this time last year. Every day I would wake up 15 minutes before class and throw on these garments, bolt out the door, and enjoy the windows-down ten minute drive to a palm-tree lined campus filled with scantily clad “students” and home to an air conditioned business school that you were glad to get inside on the warmer days. If and when there was a breeze it was a welcome one and when you talked to your friends up north you’d laugh in their stupid frostbitten ears as they walked to class in the slush, scuffing their boots over dirt-laden snowy curbs.

All this is playing now like a Corona commercial in the front of my head. It’s cold out now and I’m pissed when I think back to what I was wearing at this time last year. The terrible decision to move back north was most assuredly the bonehead play of the year.  What’s worse is the feeling I get every morning that leads me to suspect that I’m fucking pregnant, sick of waking up early to go to class. 

I get in my car and turn on the heated seats, which after two years of ownership were first used around mid-November. It’s that Punxsutawnically pathetic time of year and the day is fast approaching when Bill Murray realizes that he either has to do a Wes Anderson comedy or a Jim Jarmusch indie for the next six weeks.  The windows are up and it’s not long enough of a drive for me to enjoy any of the hot air. Luckily I’m in law school and this is not that big of a deal.

I park on the street and am careful not to slip on the black ice that the city has not had the time to salt.[1] I’m not a big fan of dressing up and my attire usually just consists of shoes, t-shirt, zip-down sweatshirt, and jeans.

Amazingly though, I have yet to become sick this winter. I say amazingly because of the plague infestation that seems to have befallen the majority of my classmates. The classroom is a cacophonous orchestra of coughs; sneezes met with obligatory G-d bless yous; blown noses propelled into discarded Kleenex. It seems like every time I turn my head, somebody coughs in it and the only lump to check for is the streptococcal one in my throat.

Today I was on call for my criminal law class and was prepared to the point where I was only slightly unconfident that I wouldn’t look like a complete fuckup. I think that the important thing in situations such as this is to take the audience down a peg or two. After years of trying I’ve finally come to the realization that the classic everyone-in-their-underwear visualization just doesn’t work and is largely disturbing.

The only real issue that I have with being on-call is how I come off to all the ladies in the house. I think I’ve finally figured it out, although it took me until after I was called upon to fix the problem. Just think to yourself that every girl in here has, at one point or another, sucked at least one dick and further, has probably taken at least one scoop of money shot to the cranium. I’m not sure why, but this is somewhat comforting and may be employed for future classroom discussions.

Nonetheless, I still had one of those tunnel vision blackout type episodes where you get called on at 3:00 and wake-up to find that it’s now 3:30. I felt like Charlie Sheen in Platoon, like people were yelling in my face and I couldn’t hear them and Tom Berenger and Willem Defoe are super-pissed because the “token black guy who dies” just killed Phong’s goat. I’m run back to my foxhole as fast as I can, all the while trying to remember what the hell just happened. The following are excerpts taken from the professor’s comments to several of my answers. “

1. [nodding his head in agreement ] “Yes, sometimes role play is good,”[2]

and upon my final answer…

2. I now release you. You are now free to drive drunk Mr. Cole.

This is just a minor indication of what goes on when I am expected to answer a question.[3]

While all of this is going on I’m supposed to be looking for some kind of summer job. These are not really jobs though and are more like coffee-making gopher internships where you don’t get paid because you haven’t finished your second year yet. There was a career fair this week with a lot of organizations and public law groups like the National Whistleblowers Center[4] looking for their respective cabana clerks. Career fair is a bit of a misnomer to me. There’s no three-legged race, pie-eating contest, corn-on-the-cob eating contest, or any other kind of contest besides who has the glossiest paper for their resumes. If there’s no funnel cake, it’s not a fucking fair.

The teacher is saying something now and I can’t help but wishing that either I or the teacher was stoned. It’s time to get the hell out of here and back out to the heated seats. Off to buy some Vap-O-Rub to spread it on like a fucking force field from the law school zombies attacking on all sides. Luckily there is an escape route. I just booked a ticket to Vegas where I will revert to last year’s sandals and shorts attire for at least one March weekend. I’m out this bitch, I got a doctor’s appointment in the morning and then it’s on with the one-sided fight. I’m turning my head, but I’m not coughing.