Occupational Hazard

Today I had a first, and hopefully not to be soon repeated experience: taking the stand in a courtroom as an um, 'expert' witness. It's a heroin overdose case, and 'People of the State of Michigan' is going after the guy who provided the stuff to the victim for opiate poisoning. I had allegedly performed the urine drug screen back in April. I got grilled with questions for almost a half hour by both sides. I don't know if I helped, but unfortunately I get the feeling 'People' is grasping at straws here.

Luckily I didn't have too long to stew about the whole thing. I found out they were trying to serve me a subpoena last Wednesday, talked with the assistant prosecutor for 'People' on Thursday, and had to stay up waaayyy past my bedtime Monday to appear in court. So I'm running on 3 hours of sleep tonight at work, but at least it's over.

This was only the pretrial hearing. The actual trial is in 6 months. Well, hopefully there won't be a trial, and hopefully I will not be called back for this kind of shenanigans again.

Oh, and driving/walking in downtown Flint? Yay. Haven't had the pleasure in years. Last time I set foot in the area was probably to deal with our marriage license in the court building. I parked too far away, because I was thinking the court building was where I had to go, but no. My building was a two block walk farther. I had to walk past the jail building. The day was freakishly warm, so they must have had windows open in the jail, and you could hear all this trash talking, yelling and primate-like hooting drifting out between the bars. I sooooo wished I was miles away.

Afterward, the only thing that kept me from sprinting down the sidewalk back to my truck were my dress shoes. Too loose, yet they rubbed the hell out of my heels. Been so long since I wore that particular pair, I forgot. Not used to wearing grown-up clothes...