Disorder in the Court!

Wednesday night found me in the jury box of the Mojave courthouse playing jurist for the local high school mock trial competition.

Mock trial is basically where the slightly nerdy-yet-theatrical kids in a high school spend a semester playing lawyer and/or witness. One school is the plaintiff, the other the defense. They each know their case and practice their side then go to a courthouse and have a pretend trial against another school. Real lawyers and judges observe and score them with a point system then determine who wins based on points. Fun stuff and something I was, of course, too preoccupied to do in my own high school years.

Being involved in this made me realize I'm now an adult. I mean a grown up that kids might listen to at times. It was an odd realization because I really don't feel like an adult. I think when you don't have kids and are only really accountable to yourself, you don't realize you're supposed to grow up. After all the only real difference between kids and adults is responsibility, right?

Then you get called "Ma'am" by a 17-year-old and it all comes crashing down on you that you are twice the age of the person talking to you and they have thrown you in the adult/parent category and are looking to you for an answer or advice as if you might actually know more than them. You catch your bearings, change the tone of your voice, and start speaking with perfect grammar and calculated precision as soon as you realize what's going on and before you know it you've grown up.

While I was sitting in the jury box contemplating my own adulthood, maturity and wisdom beyond my increasing years, I noticed one of the boys from the prosecutor's side kept looking at me. I realized he was trying to make eye contact, and possibly even attempting to flirt with me. I had heard that older women were in for the younger set these days, but it embarassed and confused me. Then I laughed at myself, noted his Batman belt buckle, and realized he must be part of my inexplainable link to all things Batman, as has been discussed previously here, here, and, perhaps everyone's favorite, here.

Note to self: Line up Batman movies in Netflix queue before Round 2.