The Trial of Aquaman

AM had such a good time writing again that he wanted to do another entry this week. One quick bit of house cleaning, I wanted to make my last entry better, so sometime this week I am going to edit the hell out of it. I reread it on Monday and was embarrassed at how crappy it was. My apologies.

Here's AM:

Thanks, Sparky. You're right on, Sunday you were terrible. Shape up or ship out. That's what we say down on the ocean floor. Speaking of the ocean floor, remember that jerk Dino from last week? He made good on his threat, lawyers are now involved in our dispute.

Just to catch you all up: a few months ago I was drinking with the boys in the middle of the ocean and we wanted to go surfing, so I punched a hole in Dino's boat and grabbed a piece of wood to surf on. Well, his boat sank and he yelled at me about getting him a new boat. So I found a piece of crap dinghy and threw it in his yard.

Last Thursday I was chilling pool side, still giggling about my Punk'd trick, when a guy in a SCUBA suit came up to me. Quick tangent, did you know that SCUBA is actually an acronym? It stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. That's pretty cool. You know what I call my self-contained underwater breathing apparatus? Lungs. You air-breathers are fucking pussies.

Anyway the guy couldn't talk so he gave me something, I had no idea what it was and then he wrote on a dry-erase board, "You've been served." I thought that the guy was going to start break dancing or something so I quickly changed into a green and orange pair of Zubazz pants and put on my best headband, but apparently it's lawyer talk for dragging someone to court.

That fucking Dino is suing me! What an asshole. Seriously, if he can't take a joke, he's a total wimp. So I wrecked his boat. So one of friends died in an accident that I caused. So he has a gigantic hunk of trash in his yard. I mean, aside from the death of his buddy, most of this stuff is pretty funny.

Usually I keep an attorney on retainer, but I was done paying orthodontist bills for the guy, so I fired him a few months ago. Plus, how hard is it to tell your side of a story to a judge? I see people do it on Divorce Court every day, and Judge Keane seems like a pretty cool dude ... I hope I get a guy like him. Like the old saying goes, "A person who represents himself has a fool for a client." Since I don't have a client, I'm not the fool.

The summons said that I had to be at the court house on Monday morning at 9:00 am. That's one am that this AM doesn't do. I'm not usually up before noon, so I rolled into the court at about 1:15 or so. I was up late the previous night watching "Robot Chicken", "Mission Hill" and pounding Brew-Dogs by myself, so I was feeling a bit irritable. Man, I had no idea I was going to be stuck with such a stickler for the law. I had Judge Paul Walker.

He was all, "Nice to see you, Mr. Aquaman, we were starting to think that you weren't going to show up today." You know, very sarcastic-like. I told him about my night's activities and tried to chat him up about it, to show no hard feelings about the sarcasm and that I was a regular dude like him. Judge Walker told me to sit down and get ready for court.

Even though I've caught literally millions of crooks and I hang out a place called the Halls of Justice, I had never been to a court before. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I was the only one dressed casual. Judge, whatever happened to casual Mondays? Seriously. Dino's lawyer was dressed really nice, which just told me that he isn't the brightest bulb. Being well dressed doesn't mean success as my mother said.

Anywho, Dino went on the stage, er stand, and started telling his sob story about how he was doing nothing, blah, blah, blah. I rolled my eyes at the jury and made the jerking-off motion with my fist. I was fined $500 by Walker. What the fuck? After about 20 minutes of mellow drama, it was my turn to question him. This is where I shined.

Me: "You say you were doing nothing, Dino. But weren't you, in fact, fishing!"
Dino: "Yeah. Me and my friends were fishing, so what?"
Me: "Didn't you say, UNDER OATH MIND YOU, that you were doing 'nothing'?"
Dino: "Yeah. We weren't bothering anyone."
Me: "Your honor, the witness has just admitted to perjury!" Then I moved in real close to Dino, so he could see my steely blue eyes and then I said, "Case closed, motherfucker!" And walked away and began to gather my oyster crackers and eel juice.

The judge said that wasn't technically perjury and that I was fined another $500 for swearing in court. He asked if I had more questions, I protested that the guy obviously is a liar and that he must be wearing asbestos pants because they are so on fire. He asked again if I had another set of questions. I said no, because I thought my case was air-tight.

Then Dino's friend, Hershel took the stand. He boo-hoo-hooed about losing his brother, Albert. It's a good thing I can swim really good because there was a river in the court room. Again, I looked at the jury and made that same whacking off motion, luckily I didn't get caught. When Hershel finally composed himself he told everyone how I threw the other boat in Dino's yard.

"Objection," I yelled. "I did not throw the boat in his yard, I placed it there. Your honor, if these witnesses can't master the English language, then I move for a new trail."

"You mean trial?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Judgie."

Judge Walker wouldn't bite. So I asked Hershel if he knew that I was drunk, he said he didn't. Here was my chance, "As a person on a boat, you have to be aware of your surroundings at all times. You weren't aware of this, so I feel that it's your responsibility for your brother's death. Sucks to be you, pal. No further questions."

That was such a wicked good point, but the judge had the remark stricken from the court records. What a douche. Anyway, it was my turn on the stand. I told everyone exactly what happened, from the drinks with the boys, to the surfing, to the boat in the front yard. I brought my pocket sound effects machine and punctuated my story with the effects. The judge confiscated it after two effects. And he charged me an extra $500.

Then Dino's lawyer had at me, I was so ready for any question he would ask me. He said that he didn't have anything for me, he said that since I admitted to everything that he really had nothing else left to say. Point, Aquaman. It's not often that you can shut a lawyer up ... especially one that gets paid by the hour. I went back to my desk confident that the jury would see things the AM way.

An hour later they came back with their decision. I winked at a hot chick on the jury, she licked her lips (which may or may not have been towards me), but thought for sure that I was so getting laid that night. I was going to get one of the court pages to give her my phone number but that fucking judge interrupted me. Damn him. I wish someone would put him in contempt of court. The court of getting some ass ... I rule that fucking place.

Anyway, he read the decision: that douchebag Dino won! Can you believe it? I have to pay that jackass for a new boat, plus an extra $250,000 in mental suffering, plus I have to get someone to take the old boat off of his front lawn (I bet Apache Chief would do that if I gave him a fifth of something) and to top it all off, I still owe the court $2,000.

I was completely railroaded! How can a man who has devoted his entire life to fighting for justice get so screwed over? It's just not fair, but as Mike Brady once said, "You can't fight City Hall." Mike Brady may have been gay in real life, but man, was he right about this.

In any event, I'm going to give Dino his $250,000 in sand dollars. They never said how I had to pay him. So, once again, Aquaman gets the last laugh. Eat that, Judge Walker.