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Court, the original "c" word. I got a traffic ticket and had to appear at my scheduled court date to contest it. I took off work and made my way downtown to the courthouse. After going through the initial metal detector at the main entrance, I was directed to a different section of the building with yet another security stop in place. As I approached, the officer manning the station pointed out that I had shorts on. Now, these were 'dressy' shorts, mind you, not lounge-around-the-house shorts or cutoffs. Not knowing how to respond to the strange comment, I simply said, "Yes".

He then proceeded to tell me that shorts of any kind were not allowed in the courtroom and that I would have to change before seeing the judge. This presented a small problem since, A. I didn't have an extra set of clothes on me and, B. I lived nowhere remotely near the courthouse and couldn't take off work again.
The look on my face must've said it all because, before I could plead with him, he pointed to a glass-enclosed, reception-type counter area and said that they might be able to help me.
At that point I did not realize how our definitions of 'help' actually differed.
As I approached the counter, I couldn't see anyone inside until I was right on top of it. On the other side stood a little old woman with glasses whose lenses were as big as cd's staring up at me.
"What do you need?", she croaked.
I explained that the officer told me to see her about my shorts, thinking that she was obviously the person who could give me a get-into-court-without-the-pro per-attire pass. Instead she disappeared behind the counter and, a few seconds later, resurfaced with a pair of acid wash jeans in one hand and a humongous purple skirt in the other.
"Pick your poison", she said.
"What do you mean?", I asked, with an impending sense of doom.
"You wanna go into court or don'tcha? What'll it be, the skirt or the jeans?", she asked impatiently.
"Uh, um... Well, the skirt looks a little large for me and...".
Interrupting my incoherent mumbling, she shoved the jeans through the opening and asked for my driver's license.
"Why do you need THAT?!?", I asked, incredulously.
"So you won't take off with the jeans", she replied. I laughed, thinking that I had endeared myself enough to her that she decided to blow the dust off and crack a joke, but she was serious. I looked down at the acid-washed Guess jeans in my hand that would've been totally rad and narley to wear in the mid-eighties, and reluctantly handed over my

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