Take Your Child to Jail Day....

Wow! Imagine my embarassment when I realized that it was take your child to WORK day! Probably one of my worst all time parenting mistakes...

Believe me, by the end of the day I would have been happy to leave her in the U.S. Marshal's lockup. The day started out fine. We skipped the tour of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court (I don't think that I could have maintained conciousness throughout that snooze fest, let alone Mary), and just hung out in my office, got a snack at the little cafe downstairs and played around outside in front of the building while we waited for the group to come back across the street for the U.S. District Court, Pre-Trial Services office, and U.S. Marshal's office tour.

The tour began at Pre-Trial Services where Mary was breathalized to make sure she was abiding by the terms of her release...she was given a large Snickers bar for her participation...it was pretty much all down hill after that. The tour was long and crowded, about 100 children and adults. When we got to the U.S. Marshal's office they thrilled the children with tales of asset forfeiture and the copy room.

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In past years, this was the highlight of the tour with Tyce. However, the tour has become substantially more popular and therefore, more crowded and less personal. Mary Rachel was begging me to leave and I barely convinced her to stay long enough to get to the holding cells. She finally got interested again when she peered through a window and saw a real inmate. Little did I know that her wheels began turning and she was pondering the fate of the incarcerated. You can see that she loved handcuffing herself and doing her best to sit in a cell and look dark and moody as one would imagine someone put away would look.

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She pepped up enough that she allowed herself to be dragged to the ceremonial courtroom for a presentation from Judge Pro, a twenty-seven year veteran of the federal bench, former chief judge, and a famous talker. He was relatively brief in his presentation and opened the floor for questions. He really did quite well with the kids, answering each question on its merits as if asked by a legal scholar rather than by a bored five year old who wanted to know if they could talk into the microphone.

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After watching several questions and answers, Mary's hand shot up. I suffered inwardly as I anticipated her question: my first thought was that she would remember that he had just returned from a trip to Africa and announce that she had been born in Africa (not true, she was born in Houston) like she had done earlier in the year to her first grade class. However, the wheels had been turning since she had seen the prisoners earlier in the tour. When she was called upon she asked, "What happens if you send someone to jail, but you got the wrong guy and nobody ever finds out?" The judge adroitly handled the seven year old's question regarding the philosophy and ethics of punishment v. rehabilitation, but Mary wasn't done. A few questions later she raised her hand, and I have no idea how long she's been thinking about this topic, but she asks, "So why do the police put on their siren when they get close to the bad guy, because he's just gonna run when he hears the siren?" I was laughing too hard to hear the judge's answer.

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Later in the day we went into Judge Dawson's Courtroom for a photo op. The Judge was out of town, so we had the run of the courtroom. She sat in his chair and role-played. She used her very serious, proper accent for this game. I was forced to pretend that I was a prisoner arrested on charges of robbing an old man. After being lectured on the evils of drugs and being forced to confess that I had committed 78 similar crimes, she asked me if I was crazy for confessing, because they had just arrested another man who looked identical to me who had likewise confessed. Now playing along, I lowered the attorney's lectern as far as it would go, knelt down and admitted that while we did look strikingly similar, I was, in fact, much shorter. This energized her and I was subjected to much cross-examination and further lectures and then I discovered at sentencing that Judge Jones was very lenient and I was released after I promised that I had learned the error of my ways. She later served an arrest warrant on my new co-clerk Betsy and subjected her to questioning regarding the origins of her government issued computer.

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Now this all doesn't sound too bad, but the wake of destruction she left behind would have rivaled the twins. The jelly beans that were bitten in half and then spit out when she didn't like the flavor, the candy wrappers all over the office, the art projects scattered on my desk, floor, hallway, the orange slush dripped and drooled from the kitchen back to my office, the Connect Four game (she played with Angela, Donna's daughter who did not leave a wake of destruction)with scattered dominoes left all over the kitchen. It took us almost an hour to clean up before we could go home.

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It was great to spend time with her, but I was exhausted by the experience...I don't know how Rebecca gets through everyday!

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(P.S. Please forgive me for intruding on what has become Rebecca's blog! Perhaps she can teach me some of her tricks of the trade including brevity and hilarity.)