RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED

 

 

HOW I SPENT MY XMAS HIATUS

 

 

    IÕm alone in my office now, the mail long since answered.  The telephone is rigorously mortised, and not a creature is stirring.  My secretary is doing crosswords, impatiently drumming her little finger on the barren pages of her stenographic pad, waiting to go home early.  It is yet another in the continuing caravan of silent nights, the onset of the Xmas drearies.  I should have long ago learned how to handle this perennial Yuletide solitude, having experienced so many.  During the rest of the year, I can be found silently praying for a respite, a surcease from the responsibility of directing the collisions of little worlds.  Now however, when actually confronted with peace on Earth, I find no solace.

    I will have unbillable time on my hands until the phones and the practice are resurrected by the gradual return of my clients to the frailities of the human race.  I have tried to fathom the relationship between the brotherly love that fills the air as the year hurdles to a close, and the vacuum created in the lives of the lawyers as it rushes past.  ItÕs not that happiness and good will upset me, although I have been able to live very well so far without them.  Rather the Xmas hiatus is a gentle reminder that we deck our halls by acts of folly, and there lurks within our professional souls a fear of a chronic outbreak of universal affection, history and human experience to the contrary notwithstanding.

    Oh, I am aware that not all of my colleagues are at this season abandoned by joyous tidings.  For some, the parade of justice never falls out.  Those brothers who answer the call of the profession on behalf of murderers, rapists, thieves and insurance companies always have the January Term to skirt.  And those poor souls who slave for THE FIRM, hoping against hope to fund a lump of partnership in their stocking, can oft be found in the office, burning the Xmas oil before their fire dies.

    But for me at least, Ōtis the season to be slow.  So here I am, sputtering with my flair for the inane, alone amidst a dozen unread journals, eleven lawsuits withering, ten unbroken homes, nine unuttered slanders, eight wills uncontested, seven contracts honored, six crimes uncommitted, need I go on?

 

    I have slashing interrogatories,

                   but no one to interrogate,

    dogmatic depositions,

               but no one to depose,

    crafty complaints,

               but nothing to complain of,

    scandalous new matter,

               the worst you could suppose.

    I have bits of writs,

            and pieces of praecipes,

    plentiful petitions,

            and bountiful briefs,

    dramatic denials,

            admissions of nothing,

    exhibits extraordinaire,

            prayers for relief,

    grandiose garnishments,

            savory seizures,

    abundant atttachments,

            and judgments galore,

    sadistic subpoenas,

            for fraudulent debtors,

    with writs of replevin,

            and oh, so much more.

    Elaborate evidence,

            expert opinions,

    Impeachment exciting,

            sublime sur reply,

    habeas corpuses,

            many mandamuses,

    writs of injunction,

            to hold back the sky.

 

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I yearn to sue and here I sit, a pax upon me.  How cruel it is to be left so alone with oneÕs own devices, especially at Xmas.

                       Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

                           S. Sponte, Esq.

 

Copyright 1979 – S. Sponte, Esq.