DING! Thirteenth floor, going down!

Everyone scurried to their respective holes like a pack of scared mice.

“Sheila, Matthew—in my office. Now. And shut the door behind you,” the judge commanded, clapping her way through the clerks’ cave, greasy ponytail in tow.

We entered the torture chamber and sat warily.

“Sheila,” she murmured, her back facing us. “You’re a smart lawyer.” Huh? “You graduated from a top law school.” Huh? “Do you think Judge Adams is qualified”—she turned dramatically, sunglasses still perched on her nose—“to sit on the Supreme Court?” It was too bad Joseph Heller had croaked—there was an amazing sequel to Catch-22 to be had. I didn’t speak, hoping this was one of those questions that really wasn’t a question. Tick. Tock. The judge sat and folded her hands. “Well?” It turned out to be a question after all. I didn’t have a good answer.

Yes, Judge Adams was qualified—as qualified as any other person sitting on that bench. Would she have been nominated but for nepotism? Probably not. Was she the best candidate out there? Definitely not. But let’s face it—are any of them? Clarence Thomas was a common sexual harasser and had less to say than Matthew’s mute reader. And had Tony Scalia not become a judge, he’d probably be president of the Promise Keepers. Wasn’t it relative, really?

“Well, Judge,” I began. “I don’t know mu-mu-much about Judge Adams to be ho-ho-honest.” The judge reached for a pencil. “She seemed to be bright based on the sitting we’ve had with her. I don’t agree with her-her-her take on Dell Nelson. But other opinions I’ve read of hers seem sound.” I shrugged my shoulders, admittedly a weak diplomatic summation.

“Interesting. You think a sound opinion here and there qualifies someone for the Supreme Court?” She smirked, pulling on her pony with one hand, cradling the pencil with the other. “What about you, Matthew? Do you agree with your colleague here—that occasional sound opinions qualify you for the Supreme Court?”

“Um. Judge, that’s not really what I said,” I interrupted. “What I mean—”

“Seems to me you haven’t said much of anything. Did you even learn anything at Cornell?” No, in fact I hadn’t, seeing as I’d never stepped foot in Ithaca in my life.

“I went to Columbia, Judge.” The last thing I wanted to be mistaken for, even momentarily, was a non-top-five-law-schooler.