Hopefully a quick story, which made my week:

As your intrepid beat reporter out of the Skokie courthouse, aka the Center of the Universe, I'm working on this profile of a local domestic violence court advocate. So they had DV court today and I checked it out.

Whew! All I gotta say is...if you ever feel like your relationship's dysfunctional...go see domestic violence court. 'Watch a hearing or two. You'll walk out feeling like the most well-adjusted, caring and sensitive significant-other ever.

But there was this civil hearing on an order of protection filed by a 16-year-old junior in high school against her ex-boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend was allegedly rough (both sexually and otherwise), intimidating, and abusive - especially after they broke up in late August and continued to have, um, a relationship of sorts, I guess.

16 years old. As in, born in 1988. Can you imagine? Jesus, I must've been living under a rock or something in high school.

So both parties go before the bench. The DV victim's advocate whom I'm profiling is standing between the alleged victim and the "respondent" (also 16 years old).

The respondent's family has hired this high-budge lawyer.

The alleged victim has no lawyer, just the advocate, who stand beside her supportively stroking her back and pony-tail. The victim's this petite soft-spoken Asian girl.

I go up to the laughably obese sheriff and ask if I can sit in one of the jury seats so I can hear better. Fuckface seems to find this as an opportunity to arbitrarily exercise his authority, and he tells me "no," as if I'm going to attack somebody with my cell phone or something (you have to clear airport-style X-ray security on the way in).

So the respondent stands, shoulders hunched, silently, behind his lawyer. His lawyer does the talking. The victim, for whatever reason, has no lawyer. She stands before the judge and tells her story for herself.

She details their relationship. She has to convey how she felt coerced into finally having sex with him. Her family is sitting in the bench in front of me.

The respondent's lawyer grills her with questions.

He asks her how many times she's had sex.

She's sixteen. Sixteen.

I wonder how Fuckface II sleeps at night.

Look, I'm not the one to make a judgement on the case. But I've never been witness to a lawyer, paid by a guy who's silently standing by, grill an underage on her sex life to discredit her. Call me crazy, but suddenly I'm rooting for the underdog.

(This might be a good time to remind: I supported Shaq, while my dad, inexplicably, still embraces Kobe. Kobe's the Clarence Thomas to Shaq's Anita Hill.)

Anyhow...the girl holds her ground! I gotta say, for a girl probably worrying about semester finals in the back of her head, she does a damn good job deflecting Mr. Overpriced Lawyer's questions right back at him.

Sixteen!

The lawyer asked her, "Isn't it true you frequently told the witness to 'shut the fuck up?'"

At which point I had to stifle my laughter. Who among us ever in a relationship has never been told to "shut the fuck up?"

Does that mean I should I file an order of protection against every girl I've ever dated?

(Actually, maybe that's saying more about me...strike that last part.)

And in the end - the judge upholds the girl's order of protection. Ha!

Little Asian girl who had to go through this ordeal in front of her parents: 1

Overpriced lawyer: 0

The only thing about that lawyer that was worth the value was the look on his face after hearing the judge's ruling.

There's nothing like a grown man trying to hide the fact he just got his ass kicked by a little girl.

I don't know how often that happens, but it was a first for me. I walked outta there smiling.

Speaking of, if you'll excuse me now I need to go get blitzed. It's gonna be a long un-fun weekend of paper-writing.

BOO-yakasha!