Future Former Fantasies

Future former fantasies

Former locker room picker-upper?  Former unskilled construction labor?  Former movie-theater projectionist?  If I’m ever interviewed on CNN or Fox News, it’s a fair bet that none of these jobs will be plastered under my name.  They don’t say much about me save perhaps to tell you that in my school days I was willing to do anything to keep working on my 1977 Camaro, get free movie tickets and pay for a date with that girl I’d had my eye on.   It always interests me that so many TV commentators are qualified as experts simply by putting “Former Prosecutor” under their names.  Why?

It says something.

They were once entrusted with the power of the State.  They once devoted themselves to service.  They once sought to make sense of tragedy, explain the inexplicable, comfort the inconsolable and restore the irretrievable.  They had once taken the vow of poverty and despaired of ever paying off their student loans.  They were counted among the warrior monks of the law, slaying the giants and monsters that are indeed lurking in the shadows.

I am hard pressed to think of other professions for which being a “former” one doesn't raise more questions than it answers.  Former priest?  Hmmm.   Former doctor?  Forgot to count sponges, huh?  Former computer programmer?  Windows 8,  eh?  It just doesn't seem to help.

It never fails…whether the Zimmerman or Arias trials, a terrorist attack or some other tragic event that finds its way in to the legal system…the former prosecutors will be there to chime in.  I suppose the good news is that since being a former prosecutor qualifies you as an “expert”, I might still get my own show on cable and pay off those student loans.

In the meantime, there remain giants to be slain.