Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The Silly Season Is Early This Year

In my prehistoric newspaper days, the “silly season” was late summer when the real world was on vacation, and editors filled space with offbeat stuff that would otherwise never qualify as news.

This week’s Washington Post has one that would be a classic in any era--about a D.C. judge who is suing his neighborhood dry cleaner for $65 million over a pair of disputed pants. The courtroom scene, which is pure Marx Brothers, recalls Groucho’s reminiscences about his father, a tailor who didn’t believe in taking measurements and therefore had to go into hiding from all his old customers.

If the D.C. judge had run across him, he would asking for a $1 billion in damages.

No comments: