You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. – William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
I’m back.
I’ve been attending depositions in my lawsuit against the Skush-O’Briens, who deposed me in December 2010 and are now being deposed by my lawyer.
Charlie Skush-O’Brien has been first batter up in our deposition schedule. In May we did a first round of Charlie over two days, and took up his deposition again for three days this past week.
I learned a lot about the defendants and what their defense against my lawsuit’s charges will look like.
But the truly significant lesson I absorbed from these depositions and now, as your plaintiff-advisor, will pass on, is:
How not to eat during a lawsuit.
Here’s the thing. When we’re away from home, living on terra semi-incognita – Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan, in my case – the sensible, regular eating habits developed over a lifetime disappear. Whoosh. And we regress to a primeval hunter-gatherer mode of existence in which a slew of edible items are grabbed willy-nilly and brought into the mouth, presumably to guarantee survival just in case no nutritious flora and/or fauna appear until the following day.
That is, I overate this week. And didn’t eat my normal regimen. And consumed too many calories. And spent around $8 each day.
Usually my morning meal is Quaker oatmeal with cranberries and no-fat sour cream (Cabot’s is great). But I couldn’t figure out how to fit a.m. oatmeal into a deposition schedule that took me into lower Manhattan before my desired oatmeal time.
So every day on the way downtown I’d buy a bagel with a little butter. “Little butter,” in Manhattan deli lingo, is a half-pound of whatever passes for butter, larded onto a fairly stale bagel. So that was my breakfast.
My common daily at-home lunch is a piece of toast made out of bread from one of the great bakeries in the Village, with some useful light protein on top, and a glass of spicy tomato juice.
But last week, except for the day my lawyer sent out for intensely delicious grilled chicken on a roll, during lunch break I’d run around the corner to Prêt à Manger and select not the half sandwich they are smart enough to sell (an ample meal for an adult woman) but a whole sandwich. And then who could, on a 90 degree day, pass the lemonade rack without grabbing a bottle?
But my ultimate sin came at the checkout counter, manned by the most cheerful young people in the city. Because right in front of the cash registers was a selection of … potato chips.
I never eat potato chips. Every day this week, though, I bought and ate a bag of potato chips.
Therefore, I’m working out a solid plan for eating intelligently during depositions and will share it with you when I get to the deposition phase of Sidebar for Plaintiffs. This is just foreplay. (Geez, they are making some terrific potato chips lately.)