Advice to Young Lawyers #27

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I'm a 37-year-old lawyer from Kansas who seems to be lost in the Central-European city of Prague. I think I came here with my family but now I’m not so sure. Each day, I sleep in a small hotel room on the outskirts of the city. The room smells of mold and stale cigarettes. At about 7 p.m., an indescribable yearning to visit Prague’s Old Town draws me there. All night long, I walk the mazelike cobblestone streets, shadowed by a tall, dark-haired woman who disappears whenever I get close to her. The one time I stopped her, she smiled at me as if in pity and reached out to hand me a flyer. It was only when I saw what the flyer was advertising—a strip joint located in a narrow street near Wenceslas Square—that I realized that she wasn’t my dark-haired pursuer at all.

That was two nights ago. Having nothing better to do, I visited the strip club, where a Czech girl in an aqua skirt and matching half-top sat in my booth and explained the “menu” of services that were being offered that evening. Across the dark room, two more girls and a man I took to be the owner talked loudly over the rock music. The menu was printed on a card that stood on my table. There was the strip dance, the contact strip dance, the exotic massage, and the exotic massage with oil. All of these choices only heightened my feeling of isolation, so I interrupted the girl.

“Can you tell me," I asked, "how I can get back to America?”

“I explain to you the menu of services now,” she answered. “You sit and listen.”

Perhaps you can understand why I want to return home so badly. This was supposed to be a quick trip with my wife and eight-year-old daughter for some R&R, but it has become a nightmare from which it seems impossible to awake. Although I lost my daily planner weeks ago, I distinctly remember that I have a trial starting sometime this month. Each day, I grow more worried. How can I find the dark-haired woman who seems to be hiding behind every corner in Old Town? I have a feeling she is some sort of powerful witch who will know how I can get back to Kansas before my trial begins. If I find her, should I offer to buy her a drink, or what?

Signed, Stuck in Central Europe

Dear Stuck:

In answering your questions, it's going to be very difficult to dish out my usual serving of humor and good cheer. Your problem is easy enough to diagnose: it’s a classic mid-life crisis. But while many young men take care of the problem by buying an expensive car, piercing an ear, or engaging in some extramarital nonsense that they’ll regret in later years, your mid-life crisis seems more entrenched than most. Frankly, I'm not sure if I have the experience to solve your problem.

For starters, don’t worry about the trial. As I’m sure you know, lawyers are perfectly fungible. Your client has undoubtedly found another one. In fact, this might be part of your problem. Here you are, some years into your career but with nothing to show for it. If you’re like most, you’ll continue in the same way for another thirty years, have a brief moment of retirement, and then die. As everyone knows, the day a lawyer dies is the day he's forgotten for good. No wonder you’re distressed.

Even so, most eventually get over their mid-life crises. The important thing to remember is that like an earthquake or a tsunami, even a very short mid-life crisis can do a lot of harm. You must be very careful. While some lesser advice-givers might scoff at your problem and remind you that there are direct flights from Prague to New York, I recognize some telltale signs of the supernatural at work in your case. Take that dark-haired woman in Old Town. If you ever found her, she’d probably tell you to rub your heels together three times and say “there’s no place like home.” But that sort of thing just doesn’t work anymore. We’re in a new century.

Why don’t you return to the strip club and see if that takes care of your problem? Unless you’re the type that gets unusually nervous in dark places, two or three exotic massages might be all it takes to snap you back to reality. It certainly won’t hurt. In the meantime, remember that your family is probably getting impatient. You better solve your problem fast: like lawyers, husbands and fathers can be fungible too.

Your friend, Evan Schaeffer

Related posts:

1. Advice to Young Lawyers #18 (Two Lovers on the Run)

2. Advice to Law Firm Partners #1 (More About Lawyers in Love)

3. The "Advice" Category--all previous advice posts

Comments

[Abnu]

You're not in toto anymore, Kansas.

[Charlsie]

My dad was on his way back from Vienna on september 11th, so they turned his plane around in the middle of the ocean and went back to Vienna. He spent the rest of the week standing in lines at the airport trying to get home and watching international news channels trying to figure out what was going on in America.

He found it very depressing. My mom was also depressed that he was stranded, so we got a new dog. My dad finally made it home Sunday night after the attacks, and I don't think he has been back to eastern europe since.

[Ted]

It could've been worse. You could've awoken from restless dreams to find yourself transformed into a giant coupon settlement.