I am slated to testify in a juvenile proceeding against the minor who was arrested driving a car that I had reported stolen the week before.
Earlier this month I got to testify against his "friend," whose lawyer tried to defend on grounds that he didn't know the car was stolen, but had thought it had belonged to Friday's defendant (although he also testified that this friend had regularly driven him around in a wide array of cars, "a lincoln navigator, sometimes a camry, a toyota forerunner," as though every fifteen year old friend goes through cars in volume to rival actual car dealers). My subpoena haled me there at 8:30; around 10:00 we moved into a courtroom; I was called at 2:30 (after a parade of wrenching cases - sullen kids electing to go back to "county" rather than be released into custody of mom, who, with other adult female relatives is sitting right there in the courtroom and perhaps even suffered to speak, etc.) to describe the appearance of my recovered vehicle. Specifically, to depict the broken steering column molding and the spoon wedged in the free-swinging ignition cylinder so that it was clear that a passenger could not have sat in that car thinking that all was as it should be. The not-at-all contrite but very cleanly groomed and dressed kid was found to have been "involved" despite his mother's testimony that he was home celebrating thanksgiving at the time (my car was stolen sometime between the night before and the morning after thanksgiving, when I discovered its absence), and I got to drive home in the curl of the wave at the forefront of the storm surge of rushhour traffic, pushed more than impeded.
The prosecutor graciously told me that I don't have to come at 8:30 but 9:00 am this time (hope they haven't pushed everything back a half-hour ;-).
Sorry about the terrible metaphors: I read a bunch of mystery/detective/crime novels over "vacation" and it begins to appear some of the colorful hyperbolic imagery has seeped into my diction like an affected british accent after a semester abroad.