1L: Week One

In my first week of law school I have learned the official definition of battery and assault, cried from complete brain fatigue, gotten high off of the adrenaline of contracts finally clicking, been awe-stricken by the legal system and its (too) many rules, drawn pictures of dream houses and gravel lots to digest the facts of cases, and sent an e mail to my contracts professor about a time I peed my pants when I was ten. 

Presuming that contracts and torts are not the stuff most readers are entertained by, I’ll expound on the pee story. Everything in law school is tinged with a hint of competition. Thus, my contracts professor offered up a little challenge to us on our first day. Sitting on his desk were six extra copies of a supplemental book that we need for his class. He was willing to save six of us lucky students the money and trouble of going out to buy our own copy by relinquishing his extra books. Now, there were two ways to “win” one of these books. By 7pm that night you could send him a question –any question. He would then choose the two best questions (those people winning books) and pose them to the class. The four best answers by 7am the following morning would win the remaining four books.

After a solid 14 hours of reading and comprehending (turns out law school is really hard—more on that later), I checked my inbox. It was midnight. I needed to sleep to get up and do it all again the next day. But, I opened the e-mail containing the winning questions, and one of them taunted me—dared me to respond. I told myself I didn’t care about winning the contest. I told myself to go to sleep. But, the question was just too…me. It asked, “What is something embarrassing that has happened to you?”

And I proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes carefully crafting the following story:

While I cannot speak to the size of the ruler one should use in measuring property [this referred to the other question posed in the e mail], I can present an interesting case of embarrassment. This story takes place in the year 1996. It was a Friday night, and my friend Mare's cultured family was taking us to the Pendleton Art Center--where art galleries were open to the public.  We were making a night of it beginning with dinner out on Ludlow Ave., a street in Cincinnati similar to State St. in Ann Arbor. After dinner, we did some strolling to kill time until the art center was open. Mare and I entered a store with a wide-variety of trinkets, world music and spiritual paraphernalia--most of which my ten-year-old self had no use for. Mare got drawn in by the instrument section and started plucking a stringed instrument along to the background music of Enya. I walked around, taking in the psychedelic fabrics, progressively feeling those six cups of water I drank at dinner (it was Indian food). My wandering soon became a dance as I looked for a restroom to relieve myself. Unable to locate one, I urged Mare that it was really time to move on from the store. She rejected my idea as she picked up a maraca and shook it in delight. Exasperated, I went to the candle section. Holding a circular candle featuring a starry night, I had reached my limit. I could no longer hold it. Right there, in the middle of the store, I peed my pants...at age ten...an age when it was really no longer ok to pee your pants. As the puddle formed below me, I tried to ignore what was happening, staring more intently at the candle as if my attention to the candle would make all else go away. If I only saw the candle, and no on else, no one else could possibly witness my current act. That was when the store manager walked over to me and tapped my shoulder. He leaned over and kindly asked, "would you like me to show you to the bathroom?" At this point, there was no denying the truth. I followed him with head hung in shame to a secret door hidden within a shelving unit. I did the best I could to remedy the situation, returning to Mare's side a few minutes later. Still in musical ecstasy, she had missed the entire scenario. I chose not to tell her and continued on to the Pendleton Art Center with uncomfortable jeans and whatever shred of dignity I had left. 

I definitely lingered over the send button for a good couple of minutes. Would it be appropriate to send an e-mail to my new law professor about peeing myself? I couldn’t possibly press send…could I? Will he always think of me as the girl who peed her pants? Is that a bad thing? In a state of delirium, I pressed send.

The next morning, I won a book.

This is law school.