Editorial
Front Page - Friday, April 30, 2010
Under Analysis
Ties, thais and deposition karma
Mark Levison
In a recent deposition, I was thinking about ties. Actually, I was concentrating on a purple tie. I purchased it a couple of months ago at Jim Thompson’s “factory” in Bangkok. I’m not sure why I ended up buying $75 ties in Thailand. They were more expensive than any I would ever buy in the United States.
Sometimes one gets caught up in the moment. I was in Southeast Asia for my honeymoon, and had met another American lawyer on the long flight.
He insisted Jim Thompson’s was the place to buy the best silks in Bangkok. It seemed a little odd to be patronizing an American business in Bangkok; nevertheless, there I was. Other than the purple one, all the ties I bought had elephants on them. It’s the symbol of Thailand. I bought lots of other silk ties at the night markets. They cost less than a dollar each. Of course, as it turns out, they were rayon. They did, however, all have elephants on them as well. I have to be careful where I wear these silk/rayon ties, because most people presume wearing elephants makes me a Republican. That works for some of my clients, but it doesn’t set well with all of them.
I have been working a lot lately to make up for the fact that I will miss some time for May graduations. Two of my three girls are graduating, as well as one of the two stepsons I picked up the option on in my recent marriage. Patrick will graduate from the University of Colo., in Boulder, and after a trip to Machu Picchu will be off to law school. I am excited about that, particularly because I could never convince any of my daughters to follow in their father’s footsteps.
Lila will graduate from Mesa State in Grand Junction, Colo., as a Spanish major, and Mariah will get her graduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis in International Conflict Resolution. Mariah’s ideal job would be to parachute into the center of a war torn region and convince the combatants to mediate peace. I guess she didn’t think being a lawyer would be challenging enough.
Unfortunately, the Colo-rado graduations are timed just far enough apart that it makes no sense to stay at our Denver or Boulder offices to work. I am going home in between. At least I’ve convinced a client to fly from Portland and meet me halfway in Denver – perhaps I can write off the trip.
So, it is working extra hard, in preparation for all these graduations, that I am hoping is an excuse for the Thai tie incident. When I first became a lawyer – and even at times since – I heard stories of older lawyers nodding off at inopportune times – like depositions. I didn’t think that could ever happen to me. However, last week I was lunching at a board of directors meeting for a local charity. They fed us well, and sometimes people get sleepy after big meals.
Further, I usually don’t eat lunch at all. I try to swim every day, April through October, to maintain some memory of my high school body. At any rate, the discussion must not have been that exhilarating, because I found myself with my hand over my forehand, closing my eyes at intervals.
Intermittently, I would look up as if I was very interested in the ongoing conversation, and then return to my repose. However, as I was pleasantly relaxing, for some inexplicable reason, an ample amount of saliva left my mouth and landed on my tie. This unfortunate, freakish accident caused my back to stiffen and my eyes to open wide. I was staring at a rather good looking female board member. Neither she, nor anyone else, showed any evidence of witnessing this humiliation, but they may have just been good actors.
My eyes darted around the room and eventually settled upon my purple tie. It wasn’t too bad – the “water” stain was only about four inches long and shaped like a huge tear drop in the center of my tie. I was at a loss as to how this could happen to somebody who dressed as well as me.
With my tie in my left hand, and upper lip protruding above my lower lip, I began surreptitiously blowing downward, to dry the uninvited stain from Jim Thompson’s expensive work of art. Unfortunately, it did not completely disappear.
At lunch today, I told Mariah of my concern that she might soon be pushing me around in a wheelchair. She chuckled and told me that her resident doctor boyfriend had pictures on his phone of several doctors sleeping during meetings – doctors that were considerably younger than me. She tried to convince me the lesson I should learn was that if you do lots of things at once, it’s OK to be tired.
Then again, maybe it’s all about the law of karma. After all, I probably should not have spent $75 on a tie in a country where 75 cents is the approximate daily wage. Well, anyway, whatever the lesson is, since
I just returned from a big lunch with Mariah, I think I’ll grab
40 winks before I complete
my preparation for tomorrow’s deposition.
©2010 Under Analysis LLC Mark Levison is a member of the law firm Lathrop & Gage LLP. You can reach Under Analysis LLC in care of this paper or by e-mail at comments@levisongroup .com.
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