Coffee and the South

Why I love the South (part I)

Many years ago when I was in Fairfax County I was running a small medical company (You should already know this is you have been paying attention). One day I discovered that one of my competitors was engaged in what I considered deceptive business practices. (For the technically curious, they had inserted my company’s name into their website meta tags in an attempt to trick search engines to divert searches to their site; how dull was that?) So mounting my high horse I made appointment with Lily Cheatum at Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. Of course the first thing that came out of her mouth was that this was a cast iron case that we could not lose. Cutting a long and excruciatingly tedious story short we racked up the hours and then called in the expert opinion of an Internet attorney. At the end of all this nonsense we were assured that we would win the case however (and here comes the kicker) the judge would probably award us minimal damages. So my choices were to hand over a retainer of $75,000 to proceed to court (and probably be awarded squat) or to bail now. Naturally I bailed. You can imagine how thrilled I was, the following week, to receive an invoice for “professional” services of just under $5,000. Just to twist the knife I also received an invoice from the Internet expert of $1100. (I spent 30 minutes in his company, although his invoice reflected 2 hours of perusing the offending website).

Now fast forward a few years and we are in Kissbotty County. Once again I find myself in a position of needing professional advice. Enter stage left, Bertie Grabbitt (Sue, Grabbitt and Runne LLP). Over a coffee Bertie listens to my story and advises that I should forget all about it. To proceed will be a highway to heartache and unbearable expense. Total fee, one free lunch (which incidentally I had to force him to accept).

And there you have it in a nutshell folks, the North is populated by money-grubbing charlatans, the South is full of decent honest folks.

Save your Confederate dollars boys, we’re gonna rise again.

TCB

P.S. John Lennon once said, “Give peace a chance”. However he also said “Coo coo ca chew, I am the Eggman, I am the Walrus” so I really don’t know what to believe. Similarly Bertie is a native New Yorker. I am so confused.