12 April, 2025
- Black Lawyer
- Apr 12
- 2 min read
Entry No. 185: “Two Sons and a Standoff”
Filed under: Habeas, Hormones & the Tyranny of Raisins
Dearest Diary,
There are days one practices law.
And then there are days one becomes the unwitting referee in a silent war waged between teenagers and their mother's potato salad.
Last Tuesday, I did not practice law. I presided over an emotional hostage situation—held captive not by criminals, but by two adolescent boys and a bag of Baked Hot Cheetos.
The setting: my office lobby.
The mood: Revolutionary.
The posture: Crossed arms, furrowed brows, and the kind of disdain usually reserved for stepmothers in Disney films.
Court had ordered the children returned to their mother following a habeas corpus proceeding.
A straightforward decree, as far as such things go.
Yet when Mother dearest arrived—resplendent in her best courthouse blouse and what I can only assume were orthopedic wedges—her sons did not rise.
No, Diary. They sat.
They did not blink.They did not speak.They did not move.
Like Dickensian ghosts bound to the lobby chairs, they glared into the existential void, vibrating with the unspoken fury of boys who’d been served raisins in their potato salad and expected to forgive it.
I gently asked what grievance required this passive-aggressive siege.
The eldest, age 14, spoke as if delivering closing remarks at The Hague:“She bought the wrong Cheetos.”
The younger followed, not to be outdone:“And she made us eat chicken Alfredo. From the microwave. On a paper plate.”
Reader, I was stunned into silence—rare, as you know.
I fought a flashback of when I was younger than them, on the verge of belt to my ass for thinking I could tell my own mother what I was willing to eat.
Their mother, clutching a handbag large enough to carry generational trauma, whispered, “They’re being dramatic.”
To which the eldest replied, “You put ketchup on steak, Deborah. That’s culinary violence.”
At this, I nearly phoned the Department of Homeland Security.
Their father, my client and an alleged adult, attempted diplomacy: “Boys, come on. Let’s be reasonable.
”The older boy responded, “Reasonable? She used almond milk in scrambled eggs.”
I gasped.
The receptionist gasped.
Somewhere, Julia Child rolled in her grave and texted Gordon Ramsay for backup.
And so they sat—those two tiny human barricades, invoking the ancient adolescent rite of I’m-not-going-and-you-can’t-make-me, wielding snack food trauma like a constitutional right.
The court order was clear.
But the boys were clearer:“We’ll go with her… when she learns to season.”
Eventually, their mother left, muttering something about TikTok and ungratefulness. She did not slam the door, but spiritually, it ricocheted.
And there they remained.Unbothered. Unmoved. Un-reunified.
Because, dear reader, habeas corpus may compel the body—But it cannot compel the teenage soul once wounded by paper-plate pasta and off-brand crisps.
I remain, as ever—Poised. Petty. Politely Refusing the Potato Salad.
Disclaimer:This entry is a fictionalized satire. Any resemblance to actual clients, children, or condiment-related custody breakdowns is entirely coincidental—but not entirely impossible.
Tag someone whose children would rather stage a sit-in than eat microwave Alfredo.
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