Take Your Offspring to Work Day: The Outcome

I'm told Youngest Son will have to prepare a paper describing his experiences on Take Your Offspring to Work Day.

I really want to see it. Because I can't believe he'll tell anything close to the truth.

Here's the truth:

I got the order continuing the trial yesterday. In the meantime, I have a number of opinion letters and pleadings to draft: As it happens, much of what I do involves reading stuff and writing about what I've read.

(Gee -- I wonder why blogging appeals to me?)

While this activity may eventually result in income, I can appreciate it may not be the most riveting thing for a 14-year old to observe.

So I let the kid sleep in this morning, while I worked at home. I'd made substantial progress on an opinion letter before he wandered downstairs around 10:00am. I told him to have breakfast and iron a shirt and then I'd probably be ready to take him downtown.

He ironed his shirt... and then I ironed it again. But he made an effort.

We left the house around 11:00 -- but it took a half hour to find a place to park (you take your chances driving into the Loop that late) and we didn't get into the office until nearly noon.

I had a plan: Last year I gave him the nickel tour. We went to the Daley Center, the Dirksen Building and the Bilandic Building (where the Appellate Court sits). We went out to lunch.

Today I decided he'd just have to see what I really do when I'm not blogging.

We started with lunch: I usually eat at my desk. Long Suffering Spouse had prepared a ham sandwich for Youngest Son and a peanut butter and jelly for me. I pulled the sandwiches from my briefcase. I had put cans of pop in the pockets of my trench coat on the way out the house. So we ate. Very glamorous.

And I printed out the letters I'd done at home, made a fax cover sheet, and sent the documents on their way. I made the labels for the envelopes. I punched holes in the file copies and put them away. I returned phone calls. I printed out emails related to files.

By this time, Youngest Son was asleep.

You too?

His baseball cap was pulled down over his face and he was slumped back in his chair and he was gently snoring.

But I got even: I had a box of documents that had to be returned to a lawyer in River North. So we borrowed a cart to wheel the box around. Youngest Son was in charge of wheeling the box. We walked back to the car over by the Daley Center -- in the rain -- making a detour to pick up my quarterly tax returns from the accountant.

Youngest Son managed to stay awake for this much, anyway, but after we put the box in the car I needed to check on a file at the courthouse. We waited in line -- the clerks were preoccupied today because many of them had their kids to chase after -- but I got the file I needed and sat down to read through it... and Youngest Son started to nod off again.

He did deliver the box of documents for me while I sat in the car with the flashers going... and then he dozed off again on the way home.

I don't think he'll be able to write a very long paper....