Lawyers’ clean genes (Humor)

Everyone dislikes lawyers, even other lawyers. I used to think lawyers were below Bush in popularity because they were sniveling, money-grubbing heartless scavengers who feed off the baser instincts of society. While all that may be true, I have discovered that the main reason people dislike lawyers is that most lawyers are men whohave the clean gene.

The gene in question was thought to be exclusively a female attribute, allowing a woman to spot a dust bunny at 100 yards whereas a man can’t see pizza box litter when he's standing in it. However, female cleanliness and the male’s lack of expertise in this field is an overdiscussed topic and to go there would be sadistic if you were a woman and masochistic if you were me.

The important insight I want to share with you came from a chance encounter in a steam room. I was talking with a lawyer friend (I know, an oxymoron) who was complaining that the steam room wasn’t kept clean and there was mold in some of the corners. As this conversation interrupted my train of thought about what, where and how breakfast was going to happen, I responded with numerous heads nods and phrases that I’ve learned work when women complain, such as, “I know, I know” and “How many times does one have to tell people?”

It was only later, once the breakfast options had been sorted through, ordered and consumed that I realized something had been askance in the steam room. I had been talking to a man whosaw mold! Of course I’d heard of mold and people (all female) have pointed out mold to me, but saying “Hmm” didn't mean I actually saw the mold, just that I want to move on before it jumped me. Men acknowledgedirt, but we don’t courtit.

Based on my experience, dirt spotting is an exclusively female sport. Not only can women see dirt, they can smell dirt and if you believe some stories, can actually hearit. The only sense I have with any dirt perception at all is touch. If my cat, Ashes, throws up during the night, I won’t notice it the next morning, or smell it. My bare feet find the mess not my eyes or ears. A man has to literally run intodirt to know that it's there, at which point there’s a 30 percent chance he'll do something about it.

Yet, that morning, I had met a man who claimed he spoke with dead people. Just kidding, what he said was he saw mold, though it’s pretty much the same thing in terms of believability.

Later that morning I thought I had an epiphany — my lawyer friend was a girl! As we had met in the men’s steam room, that thought was quickly dismissed and replaced by a real epiphany, which like all sudden insight seemed duh-obvious as soon as it occurred to me: lawyers can see dirt! That’s why they become lawyers, where they are trained to pay attention to detail. Lawyers notice when things are not as they should be such as a client with a smoking gun in his hand or a person claiming to be a woman while wearing white after Labor Day. It’s the clean gene that allows lawyers to cope with the minutiae of the legal biz.

This is why we’re all predisposed to dislike a lawyer the minute we see one — because they’re mutants. Though men don’t like the fact that women can see things they can’t, they forgive them because they’re soft and …

We men don’t like lawyers because they possess ability beyond our comprehension. For a man this is akin to another man having a bigger weapon, if you get my drift. Women don’t like lawyers because they find themselves on an equal observational footing with a man and they’re used to playing in the One-Up Court.

And lawyers don’t like other lawyers because they’re sniveling, money-grubbing heartless scavengers who feed off the baser instincts of society — that and the fact that they got to the ambulance first.

(Note to my lawyer friends: Of course I am just kidding but, to be safe, I have moved all my assets off-shore.)