Hello. Welcome to my website. It started while I was in Europe for a semester, and I've kept it up since then. I'm now at the University of Chicago Law School, living in Hyde Park, and the story continues. If you want to say hi or visit me, email cfloyd at uchicago dot edu.
"Life is nothing if not the sum of your anecdotes." -Scotty The Body, on storytelling "But it ain't that bad, man. Just figure out the system before the system figures out you." -T. Matthew Smith, on the 1L year "The beer just doesn't taste as good when you're not drinking it with your buddies." -Anon., on being away from good friends "Somebody has to pay the rent around here. Why the hell not us?" -Cotton, on studying for exams
6/24/2004
Heading to Norman this evening. I've got a gig to practice for. Ted Downing and I will be at the Norman Borders at 8pm Friday night to participate in a singer-songwriter show there. I think the show is listed on the normanmusicscene.com website here. There's no picture up because Ted's such an ugly bastard. HA! But anyway, you're welcome to stop by the show if you think you can stand sitting through our acoustic stylings in the Borders Cafe. We'll probably go out on the town afterwards. I'll be in Norman through Sunday if you want to catch up, but I may be busy at Bizzell with some writing competition for grad school. Hit me on the cell.
Work stories:
Today was the monthly clerk's luncheon. All the legal clerks gather and bring salads and desserts and juicy bits of gossip. We talked about new babies and weddings and dresses and whatnot. Major Floyd may be a single dude, but his extensive special-operations training enables him to blend in with a variety of cultures and peoples. Clerical-staff gatherings of mostly middle-aged women are no exception. I even got a great recipe for Spanish Salad!
I work in an austere federal courthouse where we stay very busy. So busy that the judge and his secretary play practical jokes on their unsuspecting summer clerks. The secretary is a very sweet woman who constantly walks through the library where I work and says, "Judge needs to see you. It's important." As I get up, she laughs and says she's kidding. This was funny at first, and funny the next two or three times, but after the twelfth time I told her it was going to cause some trouble if the judge ever actually needed to see me. She told me she wasn't kidding this time, and I said, yeah, thanks for playing.
So about an hour later Judge Joyner comes in. "Charlie, are you too busy to see me? I need to talk to you and I've been waiting for an hour." I turn and wait for the smile. No smile. "Well, come on," he says. I get up and follow him. The secretary and the other clerk are right outside the library and they all laugh when I jump up and follow the judge. Ha ha ha. Charlie got clowned. But no worries. Major Floyd has a good sense of humor and has no problem laughing at himself. All in a days work.
She is a large, red-faced woman who is very nice but not the type you mess with. She wasn't here last week, but came back Monday. Apparently dishes have been piling up in her absence and so she printed out a sign (I assume it was her):
DON'T BE A PIG
WASH YOUR OWN DISHES
DRY YOUR OWN DISHES
PUT YOUR OWN DISHES AWAY
I love this. I'm highly entertained by office vigilantism. Just imagine her walking into the office kitchen, noticing... no! ...coffee mugs! IN THE SINK! Visibly trembling, she returns to her desk. Tries to focus on the discovery pleading in front of her, but can't. Those saucers. That fork. They're taunting her! Teasing her! From the sink! But she can't clean them. This would be an affront to her honor, as well as a disincentive to the offending party to actually clean his or her own dishes. So she prints out the sign, deliberating carefully over the precise wording and tone necessary to convince the dish-non-washers to change their ways. After taping it to the cabinet over the sink, she stands back and admires her handiwork. Self-satisfaction washes over her and she returns to her desk to work and covertly read oprah.com.
This morning the despicable dishes were back in the sink. So I cleaned them without much thought. I used to be in charge of it at my old firm, so it was natural. One of the secretaries came in while I was cleaning.
So they were YOUR dishes!
No no, I'm just cleaning them.
Well how nice of you!
Hey, it's why they pay me the big bucks.
No one ever accused Major Floyd of lacking charm. Then I made my oatmeal. Dish Nazi came in to get coffee.
Well somebody finally cleaned their dishes!
No, it was Charlie. He just cleaned them all up himself.
SO IT WAS YOU! (Actually points in my direction.)
Nobody points fingers and falsely accuses Major Floyd. There's a new sheriff in town, and he don't like Nazis.
No no, I just saw the pile there and cleaned them.
Are you sure?
Yes. I clean my dishes. And even if I'd left some in there, of course they weren't all mine. There were three coffee mugs, which means at least three offenders.
Well maybe somebody used three mugs...
And I don't think I'll do dishes if I'm just going to be accused of sullying them in the first place.
Well the problem is new, and you're new!
Looks like you've got me. Nice work, Sherlock. (Floyd leaves the kitchen.)
Seriously, this was all actually said, albeit with smiles. The underlying tension was still there. Later one of the secretaries told me not to worry about it, the Dish Nazi just is a little high strung about dishes. I told her I wouldn't worry, they're not paying me enough, and I'm a laid-back dude.
Oh, and there's some graffiti on the sign now. It wasn't me. It's written in 40-yr-old-woman style cursive. The exact wording, under the Dish Nazi's post:
Or the kitchen patrol will grab you by the toe and little pig your "_____" away.
Dissent! This is wonderful. Think of how the Dish Nazi reacted to see that someone had marked on her beautiful sign. How could they! All the time, consideration, heart that she had put into her eloqent admonition--spat upon by some insolent coworker. It breaks your heart.
Good stuff. I think I'll go put a plate in the sink and leave it.
6/23/2004 08:12:00 AM
6/21/2004
Monday morning. It's rainy. I didn't want to get out of bed, but I made myself. I'm at work right now. I've been here for a little over an hour and it's been quite productive. I made coffee and fixed the printer by turning it off then back on. That did it. I also made a list of things to print. Now that I fixed the printer I can print those things. I am the pinnacle of American office efficiency.
Stories from last week:
On my first day, the secretary for the judge asked if I'd be interested in going to lunch. I said yes. She said it was at "the church." I then realized it might be that kind of lunch. But I didn't back out. So I went along at noon to First Baptist Church in downtown Tulsa with a bunch of legal secretaries who go every Tuesday to get down-home cooking with an extra dose of the Lord. Lunch was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, beans, vanilla pudding, and other tasty fixings. Delicious. While it digested we listened to the sermon or homily or message or whatever. The week's theme was Sex. Basically the preacher got up and addressed the evils of sexual addiction and indiscretion in a forthright, if somewhat bashful way. He also made a lot of G-rated jokes to break the ice, prefacing each one with "this might cross the line, but here goes..." Computers and the Internet seemed to be problematic in this area. Anyway, I came away with the feeling that Baptists were a very lustful group of people, barely in control of their libido. Unlike Episcopalians, who neither acknowledge, nor have, sex.
I share my workspace in the library with interns for other judges. Sometimes it's just me and this girl Carol who is very quiet. Silence reigns when we're in there. But we sit in leather chairs, so sometimes my belt rubs against the chair with a bit of sqeaky friction. If I were 8 years old it might seem like what some call a "fart." But we are quite good at ignoring the sounds my belt makes when it rubs against the chair. Only small children would mistake it for something untoward. The other afternoon some squeaky noises came from Carol's direction. Understanding the nature of those silly sounds, I went on with my work, not worried about a potential pollution of the library atmosphere. But then I froze. It occurred to me... CAROL WASN'T WEARING A BELT. I immediately stood up to make some coffee. And laugh my ass off.
I met the Irish pub dude at his place. He didn't buy me a beer. I think I'll go back and threaten him with another bad review until he does. But I'm not using his name or his pub's name here because he'll google me again and track me down and try to fight me. Or at least try to e-fight me. That's even scarier.
I needed some khakis for work so I went to GAP the other day. GAP is a nice place to shop. I needed assistance finding pants and looked around for a helper. I spotted a guy all GAPped out in a GAP logo ringer-T folding sweaters at a table, weight on one leg, head cocked to the other side. This guy was a GAP dude, I was sure of it. I asked him to help me find flat-front khakis... he looked at me funny... I knew right then I had the wrong dude. "I don't WORK here," he said. "Oh, sorry, I assumed from your ringer-T and clothes-folding and bored, girly posture that you were a helper here. My bad." Then I just found someone else. Be careful at GAP, there are real helpers but there are poseurs probably just hoping to get hired. No, don't bother commenting, I'm not posing and hoping to get hired. I just go in there because they have 35-waist pants that fit better than 36 but aren't tight like 34. And sometimes I stand around and fold sweaters and think about what color terrycloth polo I should purchase. Awesome.
I got an email from the Body describing his perfect weeked with Jacobson in St. Louis. Hey, tell you what, go see Dave Matthews and meet Boyd and then drink factory-fresh Budweiser at a Cards game and see Pujols hit a walkoff in the tenth. That's cool. And listen, it would be awesome if you did that and didn't invite me. That would be sweet. So from now on if you all have wonderful weekends or adventures without me, I want to know all about them so I can think about what it would have been like to have gone with you. Okay? Great.
This has been a nice use of a half-hour. Man, it's great to get paid to sit at a computer and do nothing. Oh wait. Man, it's great to get to come to an office for free and sit at a computer and do nothing. Now I'll write a memo.
The job is being a summer clerk for a federal magistrate judge here in Tulsa. A magistrate takes care of a wide range of stuff for the district courts, ranging from criminal indictments to party joinders to motion continuances and discovery issues. Basically they're the maintainence men for minor matters in the court system. It's a position that didn't exist until 1968.
The office is in the federal building in downtown Tulsa. It has the chambers and courtrooms of three different magistrates, as well as rooms for various clerks and secretaries. I have a workstation set up at the end of a conference table in the library. There are two other stations here, and I share the library with one or two clerks for the other magistrates. Also on the floor is a nice workout room with several treadmills and weight machines. Just knowing that it's there will give me the motivation to eat this donut in front of me. I can always burn it off if I so choose!
I haven't quite figured out what my schedule is. I don't think I have one per se. Since I'm working for free I think I just show up when I want and do what I want. Of course, I don't have anything else to do, and this place is air-conditioned and has internet, so I'll probably just start showing up here and hanging out even when I don't have procedural issues concerning appeals of Social Security benefits to review and summarize for the judge.
That's all the basics. The funny, as we all know, is in the details, especially the people and their interactions. So I will type all that up very soon. I have several good stories.
6/17/2004 09:02:00 AM
6/14/2004
Okay, I'm back in Tulsa now. Soon I'll write something entertaining. But now I think I'll take a nap.
6/14/2004 12:58:00 PM
6/09/2004
Very last one tomorrow. Torts. I don't know what a tort is. Pray for me.
Just kidding. But seriously, I have no idea what I'll do in life without 1L. I'll be so lost...
6/09/2004 09:50:00 PM
6/06/2004
My Contracts exam is tomorrow. Oh. This is after midnight. So my Contracts exam is today. The course was taught by Eric Posner, whose lecture style is about as dry as they come. But you know dryness, it's perfect for wit. So here are several quotations from class so you can peer into the surreal world of a first-year Contracts course. There are a whole bunch. Oh, and the only people who may find these funny are law students and lawyers. (courtesy Brian Perez-Daple)
Posner: “Is this even a breach of contract case? No! This is a quantum meruit case! What it’s doing in this contracts book I don’t know.”
Mr. Pawson (student): “I mean, looking at the dates here, I don’t think it’s likely that he was harvesting right around New Year’s time.”
Posner: “Maybe it’s an ice farm.”
Pawson: “Touché.”
P: “But remember, there’s what’s called, uh, constructive discharge, I think, or something like that…I used to teach employment law but I’ve since forgotten everything about it.”
Posner: “So for those of you who saw the Coase lecture yesterday, it’s actually relevant to class. …Maybe for the first time ever…”
P: “What could be more fungible than a tomato? What could be easier to value?”
Mr. Ruben: “Is this whole issue because we’re in equity court and not law court?”
Posner: “No. …oh yeah we are. I was just guessing. I don’t know…”
P: “Is [an Indy Pacecar] unique? No! Here’s what you’re supposed to think of when you think of unique – Picasso’s Guernica. That’s unique! There’s only one!”
P: “Does anyone have a good counterargument? …Wait, you just made the argument. You are estopped from making the counterargument.”
P: “She works for him, taking care of him, and when he dies, she gets the house. Okay there might be some funny incentives there, right?”
P: “It’s our old friend, The Statute of Frauds, rearing its ugly head!”
P: “Should the creditor have known?”
Girl: “No, I don’t think so.”
P: “Well, almost.”
Girl: “So I guess, yes?”
P: “Yes.”
P on Duncan v. Black: “You can’t grow unless you have an allotment from the county. Can that be in our free market economy? It sounds like socialism!”
P: “Well it does seem silly but we have to have some elaborate theory before we can decide it’s silly.”
P: “If there’s a law student involved [in a case in a casebook] we know he’s going to lose.”
P: “That’s a lot of work, taking care of cows for 38 days. You have to feed them, exercise them, hose them down…”
P: “Freerider? What’s a freerider?”
P: “I don’t know what these guys do. Does anyone know what managers do? Has anyone ever managed something?”
P: “Critics destroy things!”
P: “Then why don’t we just say, ‘Look you idiot, you shouldn’t have entered into this contract in the first place’?”
P: “He’s saying, ‘Look, judge – dummy…”
P: “It’s a joke. Well, it’s sort of like a joke, except the joke is on the Mexican government, or the US government.”
P: “What could the seller end up being bound to do? Delivering a gazillion barrels of salt, the whole universe of salt! And we don’t think the seller should be bound to delivering all the salt in the universe, right?”
P: “It’s kind of pointless, to tell you the truth, but it’s a good exercise.”
P: “Does anybody know why the price goes up? Anyone besides Mr. Hsiung? You don’t need a PhD from MIT to know why the price goes up.”
P: “That brings us to Davis v. Jacoby, this heartbreaking saga on pg. 372.”
P: “The Whiteheads were off in California, which of course is their problem because we all know California is corrupt and hedonistic, and they call on the Canadians to help them.”
P: “These cases are a bit complicated so…sooo, I don’t know, so I hope you read them. Or I hope you read them carefully and recently.”
P: “Is it cold in here? Why? Why is it cold?”
P: “It’s getting warmer isn’t it? It’s the heat of intellectual excitement.”
P: “Luckily promissory estoppel is the knight in shining armor that gallops to the rescue.”
P: “In some cases the person may work out to be great but in some cases the guy won’t make any money because he’s a loser! …oh sorry. Should I not have said that? ‘His talents lie elsewhere.’”
P: “As a result, instead of having the mirror image rule, which I really like, we have the impossible to understand §2-207. Idaho Power is a case that will show you just how wonderful the mirror image rule really is.”
P on UCC § 2-207: “It’s really awful isn’t it? This section? And we’re only scratching the surface of its horribleness.”
P: “So everybody hates 2-207…and as a result of that the UCC has revised it. But don’t worry, all your newly won knowledge is not yet obsolete.”
P: “This was the old days when people still had books and paper and read things…”
P: “These were the dark ages! In those days you couldn’t just type in somebody in Google and get their address and their home phone number and social security number and medical records...”
P: “That’s so primitive [buying something in a store], you know you’d have to walk into a building and interact with another human being. Now you can just stay in your basement.”
P: “Price discrimination! Isn’t that a bad thing? It sounds bad. It’s a kind of discrimination.”
P: “Now what if the term inside was, ‘Surprise! U pay us $10,000’?”
P: “So much for that. Shrink wrap licenses are enforceable. That’s the lesson for today.”
P: “It’s been told to me that Easterbrook didn’t follow Wisconsin law in this case [Pro CD] by people who know Wisconsin law, but in any event, it’s Wisconsin law now.”
P: “Okay, so we’re going to descend from the ether to the comforting world of the parole evidence rule.”
P: “They don’t want the sympathetic victim of their exploitative practices to come up with a story about an oral promise saying they’re wrong.”
P: “The Restatement does a really bad job, nonetheless it’s worth reading.”
P: “Oh I was being sarcastic. You might have missed that.”
P: “It seems kind of hard to tell them ‘You’re supposed to predict Pearl Harbor.’ Nobody else did.”
P on Chase Precast Corp. v. John J. Paonessa Co: “Median barriers! Yes, what could be more interesting?”
P: “Don’t be disappointed if your favorite doctrine isn’t represented on the exam.”
P: “Suppose you borrow a lot of money and your creditors come after you and all you own are the clothes on your back, a few appliances, a car, some jewelry, a few race horses, and some other stuff…”
P: “Something like a million people file for bankruptcy every year and their debts just disappear.”
P: “So before I go driving I enter into a contract with somebody I know doesn’t have any assets – my cat maybe – and then when I get in an accident I tell whoever I hurt “Go sue my cat. Why not?”
P: “The city’s going to have to sue the contractor – or at least demand more generous bribes or something like that.”
P: “You mean ‘intended beneficiaries’ in a common sense way, not in a legal way.”
P: “Estoppel is just one of those things you say if nothing else works.”
P: “Yeah? Is that right? I guess that’s right. I only remember parts of this case also.”
P: “So the question is, is servicing a vending machine more like fixing manhole covers or producing a drama of Shakespearean quality?”
P: “Shakespeare is the heavyweight champion of literature.”
P: “If you take the class on sales – I don’t know whether we offer that class – or the class on secure transactions…”
P on our final exam: “Two parts: Part one is a ridiculous fact pattern; part two is a ridiculous fact pattern. They’re just different.”
P on use of abbreviations in writing an exam: “It’s your risk. If I can’t understand it, then I can’t understand it. If I can understand it, I can understand it. …Try to avoid Latin. I don’t like Latin.”
Several weekends ago, I was rushing around trying to do some Valentine's Day shopping. I was stressed out and not thinking very fondly of the weather right then. It was dark, cold, and wet in the parking lot.
As I was loading my car up, I noticed that I was missing a receipt that I might need later. So mumbling under my breath, I retraced my steps to the mall entrance. As I was searching the wet pavement for the lost receipt, I heard a quiet sobbing.
The crying was coming from a poorly dressed boy of about 12- years-old. He was short and thin. He had no coat. He was just wearing a ragged flannel shirt to protect him from the cold night's chill.
Oddly enough, he was holding a hundred dollar bill in his hand. Thinking that he had gotten lost from his parents, I asked him what was wrong.
He told me his sad story. He said that he came from a large family. He had three brothers and four sisters. His father had died when he was 9-years-old. His mother was poorly educated and worked two full time jobs. She made very little to support her large family. Nevertheless, she had managed to skimp and save two hundred dollars to buy her children some Valentine's Day presents (since she didn't manage to get them anything on Christmas).
The young boy had been dropped off, by his mother, on the way to her second job. He was to use the money to buy presents for all his siblings and save just enough to take the bus home. He had not even entered the mall, when an older boy grabbed one of the hundred dollar bills and disappeared into the night.
Why didn't you scream for help?" I asked.
The boy said, "I did."
And nobody came to help you?" I queried.
The boy stared at the sidewalk and sadly shook his head. "How loud did you scream?" I inquired.
The soft-spoken boy looked up and meekly whispered, "Help me!"
I realized that absolutely no one could have heard that poor boy cry for help.
