“You’ve never visited the Courthouse?”
“I didn’t even know you could go inside!”
“Feng and I have been there a few times. They let you in as long as you don’t linger. They probably don’t want tons of tourists inside.”
My mom, Mark and I were in front of the massive courthouse, a new controversial architectural project that opened a few years ago to replace the old courthouse, a very classical building.
“Are you going to be nice, Mark?”
“No.”
“Are you going to be nice?”
“No. Not nice.”
“Then we are not going.”
“I’m nice! I’m nice!”
“Okay. I take Mark, we leave him in the stroller. We just have to go through security, you know, like at the airport. I’ll go first with Mark, they may have to check the stroller.”
“Sounds good.”
We pushed the heavy door and followed the sign to la sécurité. I had nothing in my pockets, the stroller was clean (it’s not the case at the end of the day when we have Mark’s toys, snacks, baguettes and a bunch of grocery bags…). The security gate didn’t beep, all clear.
I was about to step to the side when suddenly, I heard my mom behind us.
“Merde! I forgot I had scissors in my handbag!”
I shrugged. I assumed she meant she had a pair of tiny manicure scissors, surely it wouldn’t be an issue.
I turned around to see my mom pulling a giant pair of pointed-tip scissors out of her handbag. A perfect weapon for the former anarchist she is.
Meanwhile, my mom had an excuse…
“I’m sorry, I totally forgot they were in my bag! It’s just that I went to see my parents yesterday…”
Great. It sounded like my mom had just murdered her parents on a gloomy Sunday.
The back story? My mom and I had stopped by at my grandparents’ and because we had time that day, we gave my grandfather a haircut. My mom has a good pair of scissors just for this purpose, my grandfather still has rather long hair and he would never pay for a haircut.
Fortunately, courthouse security has probably seen it all and she wasn’t in trouble, she just left the scissors at the gate and we picked them up when we left.
Plus, my grandparents had a good laugh when I told them the story.
lol 🙂
I have this crazy friend; he doesn’t take anything seriously. This one time he and I were entering a shopping mall and the security got up to frisk us, even though we walk through the detectors. It is a regular thing at all shopping malls in India. So as we walk towards this guard, the guard is getting in position to do his bit of the drama, he knows we are just there for a coffee or something, my friend gasps out loud and he says this
“What did you do with the gun?”
That was crazy. The guard was alert now, all ready to frisk the hell out of us, I was laughing out of control. It was hilarious.
Good story Zhu, you know when I read that your mom took out a giant pair of scissors, I imagined those huge garden scissors 🙂 I even imagined your grandfather getting a haircut with those garden scissors.
Hilarious post! Thanks 🙂
😆 This is the kind of comment my dad would make. Yes, we have a weird sense of humour in my family…
The walls look like blockhaus ! Is there something to see inside the courthouse ?
Not really, just courtrooms.