They don’t teach you much about how to run a law practice in law school. That includes the rules surrounding the decision of when you should close your office when it snows. It might be common sense, but I’ve never seen that problem discussed in a book. In my 20 years of practicing law, I’ve learned at least one thing about inclement weather: When the school district cancels school before the winter weather actually arrives, you close the office. That’s the situation I found myself in last week.
There was no question that the ice was going to shut everything down. There was no question that it would do no good to open the office. The best answer for me was to have the office phones transferred to my cell number and take more work home than I could ever get done. I felt that plan gave me the best chance of making it through the storm without “stroking out” or running up to the office on a sheet of ice just to make sure everything was alright.
Patti wisely went to the store early in the week and loaded us up with dry goods. I also sent someone out early Thursday to buy some Diet Coke just for good measure. We felt like we were in pretty good shape to weather the storm. Then came the text from Entergy telling us that the lights and heat were likely to be out for 5-7 days. That text single handedly brought the sufficiency of our plan into doubt.
We did actually own a generator. Unfortunately, due to my inadequacies as a man and failure to do what needed to be done, the likelihood of the generator starting was none. The last time I could remember the generator running was the last time I camped on an island on Lake Ouachita at the end of the summer - at least five years ago. Besides, we didn’t have any gas at the house. We didn’t even have a gas can.
On my way home, I began to panic about the possible loss of power. When I got home, I brought it up to Patti. We decided that we would take the kids to eat before the big storm hit, and on the way back we would gas up the old generator and see what happens.
We went to dinner and then straight to a gas station. I had convinced myself the generator was going to work. We pulled out the generator filled it with gas, put it back in the truck, and then went inside to get some oil. When I returned and opened the tail gate on the truck, I found a steady stream of gas pouring out of the generator from the area of the gas line. Patti politely asked me to get the leaking unit out of her truck.
Seeing no hope for the generator and Patti’s objection to any more gas in her vehicle, we abandoned it by the trash can and headed for Home Depot. We had heard a rumor on the news that Home Depot may have some generators. We never believed that we would get one, but thought it would give us something to do before the weather got bad. Upon arrival, we wandered the store for a while and came across a large group of people. Not a line, just a group. We were told that if we wanted a generator, we needed to get a ticket. We were told the truck was late and no one knew when it was going to arrive. We were handed ticket #73. We settled in for a long wait with no definite info as to when or if the generators would arrive. The kids went to wander around the store.
It only took about 15 minutes of waiting until I began to think about all the other things we would need in order to make the $800 generator worth our time and effort. The list grew long very quickly. It suddenly became obvious to me that the cost/ benefit analysis of this generator thing might be a bit out of whack. Even beyond the cost of this endeavor, the time waiting for the truck, purchasing the merchandise, getting gas, getting home, and getting everything set up was going to extend late into the night. All of a sudden, I had a hunch that the storm predictions had been exaggerated.
It became clear to me that doing nothing at this point was far better than continuing this course of panic preparation. It was time to go home. Like a true svengali, I quickly convinced Patti that my position was correct. We immediately gathered the children and headed for the door.
On the way out, I found a very cool two-sided universal socket wrench that I’d seen advertised on TV. We bought the wrench and headed for the house. We cranked up the heat when we got home, lit the fireplace, and hoped for the best. I saw that a friend lost power over in Ft. Smith and began to question my decision.
The storm came and went without any loss of power. It was not as bad as predicted, but there was a lot of ice. I took several calls for the firm over the weekend. None of them could not have waited until the thaw. I took them and handled them as best I could. I worked on my files and got nowhere near as much work done as I should have. However, I made it through the storm and never once felt the need to risk getting out to check on the office.
In hindsight, the decision to pass on the generator purchase seems genius. Although, I have to wonder how much of my decision to forego the purchase of a new generator was based on intuition and how much was based on laziness. After all, isn’t it laziness that put me at the corner of “I need a generator” and “I don’t have one” in the first place? Maybe, it was just luck.
Whatever the reason, the James Family made it through the first winter storm of the year, and if luck holds out, we’ll make it through the entire winter. My real questions are whether someone picked up my generator, and how much it cost them to get it working. My guess is that if a real man picked it up, he could have got it running for $20. I hope someone that needed it found it.
Either way, it’s out of my garage, and there’s a little more room. I have plenty of Diet Coke and I have two bags of salt. Even thought the Diet Coke will be long gone by the next storm, I’ll be ready with the salt. At least, I’ll start off better than I did this time. What I need to do is buy a generator if I’m going to do so. Or maybe I’ll just wait and see what happens. It’s always good to live on the edge way up in the CHEAP SEATS!
Bill James is a co-founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, Arkansas. His primary area of practice is criminal defense. He can be contacted at Bill@JamesFirm.com