Law School: Or How I Became an Argumentative Anatomical Object that Rhymes with Bass Bowl

Now, I'm assuming some of you will quibble with the word "became" in the title, and that would land you in one of two camps: People who have known me a long time, or lawyers. This is mostly directed at camp #2, but I digress. Camp #2, you're just making my argument for me by arguing with "became."

By way of background, and this may seem to be totally unrelated (Will McMillan or Leighton, that's 8, if you're counting at home) but I'll tie it all together if you give me a moment, but anyway, my dad retired. One of the things he has started doing is cooking. He's actually gotten very good at making a lot of things, and one of the absolute best things is homemade grilled pizza. He makes the dough, grills it outside, then the lucky diners (read: Luke, mom, and me) assemble their pizza with whichever toppings they choose, then the pizza goes back on the grill for a few minutes until they are good and hot. Man, these things are good, but this post is about law school and me, not pizza; again, I digress.

So, this morning, I'm talking to my mom. Just normal chit chat until the conversation turns to Thanksgiving. So, this year, it's going to be a lighter turnout as compared to year's past, but it will still be good. My mom is in charge this year, and she was planning what other meals we would be having during the holiday. One of those meals is going to be grilled pizza. It's all coming up Milhouse, if you ask me.

So, in order to make things easier, my mom was going to make the dough ahead of time. She asks me if I knew where the whole wheat flour was for the dough. Me, being close to 20 miles away, under the covers in my apartment, respond with the usual, "I don't know." My mom says that dad, who is now in charge of the kitchen (and doing a fantastic job, for the most part [sometimes, things don't get put back where they came from {pay attention here, kidz, this is the point of my story}]) hid the flour. My response is, "I don't think he hid the flour. The requisite intent was not there. Dad may have misplaced it, or put it down somewhere else, but it's not hidden." My mom says if you can't find it, it's hidden.

So, I'm thinking a few things at this point. One, make a point about mens rea (mental state, in terms of culpability for those who don't know) by saying dad shouldn't be blamed for an intentional act when we all know he didn't put the flour back in the wrong place on purpose. He could have put it back in the wrong place but no way was it on purpose. Two, blame the housekeeper. The ole empty chair defendant trick. Three, "Man, that defense attorney instinct sure did kick in there, even against my own mother. Good lord. You don't know where the flour is, just say that and shut up. What's wrong with you? This is why people hate attorneys. (Random lawyer joke: What do you call a bus full of lawyers driving off of a cliff? A good start!!) You're arguing about something you have no idea about. You're in your apartment. You haven't seen the pantry at home in weeks. Just shut up, rhymes with bass bowl (that would be my Indian name [not that Indian, the other one]). Law school really did make me (perhaps "more of" should be in the sentence, but relax) an argumentative jerk.