“Sheila?” The fedora had approached my bench, and upon closer inspection, I realized he’d been in my Fed Courts class. “Hey, Sheila. It’s Brian. You know, from Columbia.” He parked himself right in front of me so I was forced to stare at his puny crotch. Suddenly my bird didn’t look so bad. “I didn’t know you were clerking here,” he continued. And I didn’t know that it was possible that Scalia’s distaste for congressional activity could still keep you in stitches after all these years.

“Yep. I take it you are, too. Who are you clerking for?” The question rolled off my tongue before I even knew what I was saying.

“Judge Fleck,” he said so proudly you’d have thought the pope had just canonized him. He graciously followed up with a pregnant pause to allow me to congratulate him for landing a clerkship with the chief judge, yet another rung in the endless hierarchy. The appellate clerks were better than the district court clerks. Clerking for the chief judge made you clerk king.

Who was I to dethrone Brian? Not to mention, he was wearing an American flag pin on the buttoned-down collar of his grainy shirt. It would have been unpatriotic of me not to salute him.

“Wow, that’s great.” I barely got out the last word before Brian started giggling like a slumber party princess.

“Yeah, he’s sooooo cool. My coclerks and a couple of other clerks I’ve met around are over there,” he said and pointed to his audience, all of whom were watching our conversation in awe. “What about you? Who are you clerking for?” This was clearly going to be the year’s million-dollar question.

“Friedman. Judge Friedman?” What I muttered sounded more like a question than an answer. A mere week earlier, I had said that name with such pride. I was going to Philadelphia to clerk for Judge Friedman! Now, I could barely say the words as a statement, as if I myself didn’t believe them.

“Wow, I hear she’s tough,” Brian quickly said, before adding, “but really really smart.”

Of course. One could never say something even remotely negative about a judge without a qualifying compliment. But I couldn’t blame him really. He’d spent three long years in law school, too, where judges are sacrosanct.

“What do you mean by tough?” I asked curiously.

Brian started fidgeting. “Uh, nothing, nothing, like, you know, she’s really tough on lawyers, I think.” Then he looked behind him, as if the boogeyman were standing there.

“Hey, Brian, I really have to get back,” I lied, staring at my full plate of carcass. Silence. “We should definitely get lunch sometime,” I blurted. Classic. The paradigmatic panic invitation. To escape one awkward social situation, I’d suggest a longer, planned awkward social situation. I tossed the bird and fled.