Mark Thinks

There’s an enormous fly zipping around my apartment. A few days ago it was too elusive to swat, but I promised vengeance. These days, it’s morbidly obese and would make an easy kill. This makes me less motivated to squish it. I guess men really are all about the chase.

Michael Jackson died when his heart gave out. I recall spending much of my childhood singing along to MJ and learning how to Moonwalk. The first album I ever inserted into a record player was “Thriller.” I associate some MJ songs with fond memories of family and friends; the older I get, the more I appreciate his creative genius.

This year I celebrated my birthday by waking up at 7:30am to sign up for fall classes. I hit my browser’s reload button 20 times at 7:59, only to find out I had a registration hold because of library fines. I trudged over to the business office in my nappytime-garb and paid up, but by then one of my preferred teachers had been fully booked. In lieu of asking God for a sugar mama coming out of a giant custard cake holding a 20-piece McNugget meal, I wished for the same thing as last year, and again the higher powers mocked me, forcing me to look up at the sky and shake my fist in disgust. After two decades of hoping, I still don’t have an even tan. I’ve tried covering up my entire body except for below my knees, and that hasn’t worked. I wonder if I can get a spray job just on my legs. I’m desperate. I’ll cry the next time my sister sees me wearing shorts and says, “bling bling!”

Does my aversion to wearing shorts hurt my health? Do I get less sunlight, and thus less Vitamin D, making me more vulnerable to skin cancer? I hope not.

With LOST not returning until 2010, I needed a show to hold me over. That show is 24. I’ve just finished season 5 and I’m still saddened by Edgar’s death. I don’t understand myself…the nuclear bomb went off in Los Angeles and I was like, “bleh” (do I hate Kobe that much?) but when the lovable loyal computer nerd dies, I’m shook up.

After attending a barbeque for some freshly-minted high school graduates and hearing about the great universities they will be attending, I’m reminded of how I still harbor a delusion that I actually got into Stanford. I’ve applied to that school four times and made it to the wait list once. To me that’s a half-rejection, but I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of guy so I rounded down, making it an un-rejection, and if it’s not a rejection then it has to be an acceptance, so I was accepted, except for the whole “you can come here” part. Now I can think of myself as Stanford-material. Time to buy a sweatshirt.

Speaking of Stanford, I’ve given over $250 in application fees and tens of hours due to their monstrous essay requirements. I’ll be redeemed if a child of mine attends Stanford. When he/she applies, the “legacy” part of the application will have my name, “Waitlist class of 20XX.” Hopefully the admissions officer will think, “let’s give this family a break.”

Stanford’s archrival is Berkeley. It just occurred to me that I could implement this fact into my plan: I want my kid to be accepted to both schools, then choose Berkeley. That way, Stanford will know what rejection feels like. I can send them my own letter:

Dear Stanford,
You suck.

How you like me now,
Mark

And now, the dumbest picture I’ve seen in a long time.

Yikes.

I love how my mom has always known how to get through to me.

Let’s flash back, Lost-style, to July 3, 1988 (I remember the date because a newsflash that day said, “today, July third” before reporting that the USS Vincennes mistook Iranian Flight 655 for a fighter plane, shooting it down with a missile and killing 250 people or so).

Little Mark and his mom are at Walgreens, buying supplies for my first day in Kindergarten:

Me: We need a colored folder.
Mom: Okay go pick one.
Me: *scurries off and comes back* I like this one. 
Mom: You can’t get that one. That’s clear. Clear is not a color, Mark.
Me: Clear is not a color?
Mom: It’s not, my boy.
Me: Really? *bites lip, covers mouth with shirt, looks up and thinks*
Mom: What would a clear crayon look like?
Me: Oooooooooh. Ok mommy.

For a while after that I thought all colors not included in the Crayola boxes weren’t legit. Later that week my dad got the car fixed and I went with him to the dealer. He was filling out a form and he wrote “Delphin Grey” as the car’s color. When we got home, I looked through my 48 Crayolas looking for a Delphin Grey. It wasn’t there, so Delphin Grey has been an illegitimate color to me since then. I also started thinking of erasers as “clear crayons” in the sense that they remove dark colored marks from paper (a belief I hold to this day). Years of self-deception…all to convince myself I was right that day in Walgreens. I’m THAT stubborn.

Here’s an excerpt from my most recent conversation with my mom:

Me: I’ve been busy studying. Sometimes I don’t want to eat because I know I’ll have to wash the dishes.
Mom: Why don’t you get paper plates and plastic utensils?
Me: *pause* oh yeah…
Mom: I know my boy.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from spring break it’s this: Don’t get a white ski cap.

When it flies off your head, that cap will be hard to find. You end up staring at the slopes for about three minutes until someone runs over the cap at a high speed, gets airborne for about 12 feet, then tumbles to a halt. Then you wonder if you’ve just committed a tort against that hapless young man in the blue North Face jacket and black REI gloves.

Clumsily maneuvering in my skis, I clip-clopped my way to the poor fellow, hoping he was in one piece. At the same time, however, the lawyer in me kicked in…

Oh boy…should I have warned him of the cap? Would I even have a method of doing so? Would yelling at speeding skiers have created more risk? What if he doesn’t speak English? Then he might not be from California. We’d be in diversity jurisdiction. That’s U.S.C. 1332. Oh no… that means he’d sue me for at least $75,001! That’s a lot of money!

Next, I thought of blaming someone else and seeking indemnification.

Rule 20 would probably allow it. Same T&O and whatnot. The plaintiff would probably want to bring in the deep pockets anyway. However, they might not want to fight someone with deep pockets and opt to sue me alone. However, I can implead via Rule 14! Crossclaim biatch!

So…to where would I shift the blame?

Let’s blame the ski resort. They let a greenhorn skier like me wander into their double black diamond zone. They also let me on the lift while I was wearing said white ski cap. They should have known bad things could happen. Service of process and personal jurisdiction would be a done deal…

Then I got angry…

You know what? I should blame that guy for not looking where he was going. If he had been paying attention to the snow ahead, he could have easily moved to the side and avoided calamity. What do you mean he didn’t have time to see? He shouldn’t have been going so fast, then!  In fact, I did him a favor. He’s lucky his carelessness only resulted in a slip and slide. He could have hit a tree being so absent-minded. Furthermore, wouldn’t it be bad policy to encourage people to run into others’ debris just so they can file claims? That’s frivolous! I could smack his lawyer with a Rule 11.

Then another bright idea…

I can implead the cap manufacturer! They marketed it as ski gear and they knew it would be used around white snow! That’s a design defect! They should have made it a darker color, or at least had a way to tie it around my neck. Rule 407 would keep subsequent remedial measures out, in case they’ve gotten their act together recently. Genius!

Then paranoia kicked in…

Uh oh…what if the ski cap was made by a company in China? Would the court have personal jurisdiction over that company? Could manufacturing ski caps used during only one season of the year constitute a “systematic and continuous” relationship with this state? What if white ski caps are already illegal and I’ve been wearing illegally imported stuff? Am I in possession of contraband? If I hide it in my crotch can the police search me?

As these thoughts swirled around my noggin, I arrived at the guy and asked him if I was ok. I didn’t want to say “I’m sorry” because I didn’t know if he’d sue me in California or in the Federal courts.

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