Common Ground

2 Daniel believed he’d been subject to every pathetic legal wisecrack imaginable -- at least until senior partner Kenneth Poole relayed a joke, told by a grandson earlier that day. “What do you have when you put one hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start!” Poole coughed and sputtered at his own delivery. Daniel Graves and Elliott Mattern, friends and fellow attorneys at Poole, Lambert and Essings, groaned in unison at the tired gag. Both saw this as an opportunity to exit the happy hour masquerading as the firm’s holiday party. With a forced smile for a partner’s wife ambling by, Elliott conveyed, “This is why my wife refuses to attend these soirees now. Bad food, marginal conversation -- present company excluded -- and horrid jokes.” He nodded to a nearby coworker. “I avoid my in-laws for those very same reasons.” With a hand on Elliott’s shoulder, Daniel rotated him towards the entrance of the large party room. “We should leave now while we still have some semblance of our dignity intact,” reasoned Daniel. “I can feel it -- one of the partners, probably Essings, will launch into an embarrassingly long speech. He’ll rehash every trial, every court case we’ve had this year. You and I will slip into comas, never to awaken.” “I’d rather suffer through a root-canal,” surmised Elliott, examining an appetizer. “Do you have any idea what this is?” He turned the exotic piece of food over.