Thursday, May 31, 2012

Thank God this has never happened to any of us...

Have you ever had one of those days where you're at work, sitting in a conference room with great big windows facing the hallway, and you see another court reporter who you know and haven't seen in a really long time walk down the hallway, and she looks in and sees you and smiles and waves, and you smile and wave, and you think, wow, so cool, haven't seen her in forever and today we both have jobs in the same office! I hope we go to lunch at the same time, I would love to catch up with her! And then you realize that your job doesn't start for another 20 minutes, so you go out in the hallway in search of that friend, thinking you'll say hi. But you can't find her anywhere, so you go back to your conference room and wait for your deposition to start. And as you're sitting in your spot, waiting for the deposition to start, your friend comes back down the hallway towards the room that you're in. And you think, yay, she found me, I guess her job's not starting yet either. And so you get up from your chair, and walk to the door with a big giant welcoming smile on your face, and you embrace your long lost friend who you haven't seen in forever, and give her a huge bearhug, and you hug and you hug and you gush and say oh, my gosh, it's so great to see you! And your friend hugs you back, stiffly and awkwardly, and she says in kind of a weird way, um, yeah, hi, nice to see you again too. And you release your friend from your giant bearhug, and back up a step, and realize that she's not your friend after all, and you realize she's actually the out-of-town corporate representative for the company being sued that has been sitting in on all the depositions, and, OH SHIT, that's why she looks so familiar! And you return to your seat at the table, and she takes her seat at the table, and you have to spend the next eight hours in a deposition with a woman you just kind of accidentally assaulted. No? Really? That's never happened to you before? Oh good. Me neither. Thank God.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

um...not trying to top you but I have a very similar story.
I had just finished a major race and had been awake for over 30+ hours, so needless to say I wasn't all there. But there was my ex boyfriend at the finish line. Not there to see me but his family who was also doing the race. Long story, but we are still good friends and keep in touch, he was even in my wedding. Well, I go up to him and give him a hug and start talking to him and he looks at me like I am crazy. I keep asking him where his brother is. I kept calling him by his name and he kept telling me he wasn't that name. "come on, stop messing with me" I kept saying, "we used to date" "nope, sorry, don't know who you are" he kept saying. I finally took his word for it and walked away head down. It wasn't him.
So I feel your pain. And humiliation.

Anna Whiston-Donaldson said...

Um. Wow. Sounds kind of awkward.