Two weeks ago, I got a phone call from someone at William Mitchell asking if I’d participate in an alumni discussion group. It was pretty simple: a group of us would meet on campus, grab some dinner, then talk about… stuff. I didn’t know what the topic of the day would be, but free food? Hell, yeah!
So I showed up tonight without any expectations (aside from the free food part). I thought I might have been able to throw a monkey wrench into the works by saying that I haven’t done much with my law degree except put it on a table next to my high school and college diplomas. Alas, twas not to be. Instead, I ate lasagna, some bread, two brownies and missed an opportunity.
Upon arriving three minutes early, one other participant was in the room along with a pair of market research analysts. Ten minutes later, we had five people in the group, one of whom graduated the same year as me. I also had a couple of classes with her. I also had a major crush on her during our last year. At the time, I was awesome at screwing around and laughing—my mama always said you should do what you’re good at—but when it came to talking to her about anything social… AH HA HA HAAAA!!! (See what I mean about the laughing?)
And now here she was, sitting next to me at the table, providing some strong opinions about the school and eating lasagna at the same time. God, what a woman… This seemed like a chance to redeem myself. After being on Beauty and the Geek and gaining some much needed confidence, I’d be able to talk to her, ask her if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee afterwards or something. (Mind you, I’m currently in a very happy relationship, but you don’t fuck with redemption.) If she graciously smiled and refused, I could always tell her I was trying to make up for all the times I wanted to say something back in 2003-04. If she spat in my face, well, I could blame that on the high levels of depression and alcoholism among lawyers.
But there was still the discussion ahead of us. There was a whole lot of talk about how expensive law school is, how saturated the legal field here in the Twin Cities has become and thus how difficult it is to repay student loans. I’m in agreement with everyone else there when I say that if you want a law degree, go for it. If you want to become a lawyer… are you fucking nuts?! You may want to hold off on those registration forms for a little while.
The market research guy also presented us with a couple of potential slogans for the school. Some I liked, some I didn’t. Out of six, I didn’t like two of them because they were way too open-ended. Talking about “advantage” or “enduring impact” doesn’t say that much about the school. I took my thumb, squashed a butter cube and said, “I just caused an enduring impact.” One that had kind of a nice ring to it was “A premier regional law school with a global influence.” The “premier” seemed unnecessary, but overall, I liked it. William Mitchell doesn’t have much name recognition outside of the tri-state area, but if our alums have a huuuuuuge influence outside of the country, that makes us cool, right?
Anyway, after we wrapped up, people were starting to engage in pleasantries and left the discussion room one by one. Eventually, it was down to me, my former crush and another guy. And he was talking. It was cool, he had some interesting insights into the legal field and stuff, but as we got into the parking lot and those two kept walking past my car… damn. So much for redemption.
So the opportunity passed and she drove off into the night. Will I ever see her again? Perhaps. Will I invite her out for coffee for redemption’s sake? Most likely. Will she spit on my shoes? That depends on whether she’s become clinically depressed or an alcoholic by then. If that’s the case, maybe I’d be better off sticking with free lasagna.
