"Live and Learn"

Friday

There's a first time for everything, and I had quite a few firsts today.  First time in court, first time drinking coffee, and first time getting ripped off by fake lettuce.

In the morning, I was Nancy's chauffeur to court where she was one of two witnesses in a case involving a thirty-eight year old black male who had worked for her at Fair Foods in the past (the other witness being his partner).  The fellow had been convicted of something more than ten years ago, but had stopped checking in with his probation officer about ten years ago.  Thus there was a warrant out for his arrest.  A while ago he told Nancy that there was a warrant out for his arrest, and they discussed it.  They decided that she would write a letter and send it to the court.  He was picked up about a month ago at a store, when during a random check he was asked for some ID, and he informed the officers that there was a warrant out for him.  The fellow has five kids, and hasn't been in any additional trouble for the last ten years.  Nancy says that if she, as a white woman, hadn't gotten involved he might have ended up with 3-6 years.  As it was, prosecution asked for 18 months.  By the way the judge was talking, it sounded like he might take 18 months, so it was a bit of a surprise when he announced only 60 days.  9 days that he has already served count towards that, and he may get about half time, so he might be back to his family within a month.  Nancy was ecstatic. If it really is true that having a white person vouch for you makes a bigger difference than a black person, then that is disgusting.

At the second site today we were brought two iced coffees with some cream and sugar.  Since it was given to me, I decided I would drink it.  Tasted the way Dannon coffee yogurt tastes, which is to say, Dannon coffee yogurt must actually taste a little like coffee.  If I have coffee again some time I'd like to try it black, just so I know what it tastes like on its own.

Our third site on Fridays is right on a busy road.  In one car that was sitting, waiting for the light to change, the kid in the passenger seat flagged me down with a bill.  After giving him his $48 dollars in change and a bag of produce, I came back in the van, and Jason told me to check and make sure it was real.  I now know both that it is general Fair Foods policy not to accept fiftys and Benjamins, and why.  If you were looking at it closely, it was easy to see that it was counterfeit, but it was just not something that had ever crossed my mind.  Well, this is my first job where I deal with money on a regular basis.  At least nobody was too worried about it.  After all, as Jason said right afterwards, "It's only money."

Jim