I spent all day yesterday in a mediation conference in downtown LA. The case is a real pain in the arse...Our client is an uber-rich guy who was having a multi-million dollar custom home built. A couple of the contractors screwed up royally - like placing the entire foundation in the wrong place. Now they want to be paid for the work - which had to be torn out and redone. Boring stuff.
During the course of the mediation my client and I were sequestered in our own conference room. The mediator spent about 30 minutes of the four hours we were there speaking with us. This means I spent three and a half hours alone in a room with our client, a multi-multi-multi-millionaire that I have probably spoken with for a total of 45 minutes in my life. I got to hear his life story, which is actually quite impressive, and witness his unique habit of compulsively writing words he's just said in columns on a piece of paper. I'm not kidding, out of almost every sentence he spoke he would fixate on one word and being writing it in a column on a piece of paper about five times consecutively. Then he would stop writing for a minute and begin with another word just spoken. He did this as he kept speaking but would sometimes continue to write the word while repeating the word. It was fascinatingly frightening to watch. By the end of four hours he had completely filled three pieces of paper, front and back with various nouns, verbs and adjectives. He completely filled each page before moving on to the next. At first I found his behavior somewhat amusing in that Howard Hughes kind of way. By then end of the day I just wanted out of the room before he lost it completely. I just hope my name stays off his list.
Interestingly enough, one of the words on his paper was Taco. Taco is his pet chihuahua. He had a lot to say about Taco. He envied Taco for his simple life, which consists of waking him up early each morning to go outside and pee (Taco, that is), watching Taco go to his bed and go back to sleep, then returning home to Taco in the evening whereupon they begin the evening ritual of making Taco's dinner. Mind you, the client has three maids that live at his house. Still, the cient and Taco have a special bond so he spends two hours each evening preparing a meal for Taco. He begins by boiling an oxtail in a pot. Once sufficiently boiled, he removes the oxtail, cleans the meat from the bone, cuts the meat into little pieces - because Taco has a little mouth - and then puts it in Taco's special dish - no, it's not a dog bowl it's a crystal platter - and watches Taco eat it. After Taco is done eating, Taco asks twice for the bone by barking and is given the bone to take and hide under a chair. Our client then sits across from the chair and watches Taco gnaw on the bone for a while. He spent a good hour talking about Taco and I spent at least two hours envisioning this multi millionaire catering to a six pound yapping rat-like animal.
In the end my client walked out angry - probably headed home to feed Taco. I was left wondering how a man who has everything can end up envying a chihuahua.
No comments:
Post a Comment