The witness speaks...

Today was my day in court.

Before the FBI agent picked me up, I got up and worked out. It was a nice hotel and the fitness room was a good one, but it stunk like nasty, sweaty, stinky man. It was more prevelant near one person, so I moved to another machine. When I got in the shower afterward, I decided to use the hotel shampoo because I was too lazy to get mine out. It was labled as minty. It smelled like mint, but let me tell you, I could feel the mint tingling my scalp. I snagged the rest of the bottle for another time. (I'm such a dork, see what I get excited about!?!") Then I went downstairs and had breakfast. I paid waaay more than I should have for it, but I had been eating out of my foodbag the last 2 days and I wanted something hot and on a real plate.

The FBI agent picked me up and we drove to downtown LAX to the courthouse. There, we met with the Assistant US Attorney and another FBI agent. We walked into the courtroom and waited for the trial to start. And we waited. And waited.

Finally, the judge came in. We all stood when they said "All rise", and introduced the honorable judge. The judge asked a few questions, made the witnesses go to a witness room and there we waited some more until we were called.

When it was my turn, I walked into the room and was told to go to the witness stand. They made me do the swearing in stuff, but there was no Bible. Basically, the AUSA asked me questions and I answered them. It was pretty easy. At one point, the defense attorney yelled, "Objection!", but before I could even figure out what was being objected to, the judge overruled it.

At one point during cross-examination, the Defense Attorney asked me whether I specifically served her client.

"Yes."

"Did you see him exposed?"

"No".

"How many times did you walk up and down the aisle during the flight?"

Sheesh, lady, it's a 4 hour flight! Like I can give you an exact number.

"Um, maybe like 40."

"And you never saw him exposed?"

"No."

"Aren't you trained as a flight attendant to look for these things?"

"I don't recall ever specifically addressing that type of situation in our training."

I'll have to remember to write my superiors a report telling them we may want to incorporate that into the curriculum. From now on, we should look for lewd conduct as we check to make sure seatbelts are fastened.

Also, the guy who recorded everything ( I think he's called a stenographer) asked the judge like 5 times to ask me to slow down when I spoke. I immediately thought, "Well, I've heard that before!" But I didn't think I was talking too fast. But I did make an attempt to slow down.

My part in it all lasted all of 10 -15 minutes. Then there was more waiting, and the judge finally came back and found him guilty.

So now I'm in Chicago and will be flying this weekend.