“Don’t worry about it, miss. I’m Ernie.” He grinned. I couldn’t speak and even if I could, I didn’t want to disclose my name. About ten people there wanted to rip my eyes out. So, I simply waited as Ernie scooped up a pork chop and a chicken-fried steak. I handed the cashier a ten. She looked at me. Me at her.

The lady behind me couldn’t control herself. “What’s wrong with you?!” Her eyes burned. “You have to tell her what you gave her. She’s blind.” I’d apparently missed the sign alerting the masses to all the blind folks.

“Oh, uh, it’s a ten. Um, keep the change. Um, see you later.” Did I just say that to the blind lady? She wouldn’t be seeing me later. She wouldn’t be seeing anything ever. And there I was, rubbing it in. I was a terrible person. I returned to the main dining area, chicken-fried animal in tow.

Secretary gangs engaged in silent turf wars. Clerks in pleats hovered in various corners. I wondered how they’d become so chummy already. This was worse than finding a friend to sit with in middle school. At least then there was chocolate milk.

For a split second, I considered taking my food upstairs and eating it there, but the thought of eating a chicken-fried steak was distressing enough, and I couldn’t endure the judge’s stare fest on top of it all. Instead, I squeezed into an unassuming nonclerks corner. Peace and quiet. Just me and my deep-fried meat. What was a chicken-fried steak? A bird? A cow? A little of both? Whilst pondering, I heard some disconcerting ramblings.

“Did you hear about Judge Jones? He’s, like, six months behind on his opinions,” an emboldened pleat loudly whispered from the west. Gasps all around. Everyone was entranced.

From the southeast, a clerk, donning what looked like a fedora, soapboxed to a group of mesmerized fans: “And then Judge Fleck said, ‘Well, what do you expect, Scalia penned that one.’” Cackles. Impossible. Even the lunchtime gossip was a snooze fest.

Scalia jokes are the all time worst. I’m not talking about the lawyer joke genre, mind you, a wretched one for sure. Example: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?Punch line: A vampire only sucks blood at night. Scalia jokes constitute more of a jurisprudential subgenre. In the knee-slapping corridors of every law school, one learns how Justice Thomas never speaks and Justice Scalia doesn’t believe in considering legislative history when considering the constitutionality of a law. Based on those two truths that are self-evident of nothing in particular, a whole assembly line of law jokes has emerged. There’s a reason Jerry Seinfeld never told any of them.