Beware the fanny-pack attorney

If you have a legal case that's been pending in the eternal waiting-line of our court system and your day finally arrives and you show up at the courthouse to find the attorney assigned to your case by your big old legal firm is sporting a little curly-q pony tail, a wooden bead bracelet, a mood ring on his pinky finger and a fanny pack over his suit pants but under his suit coat, should you be concerned?

I drove my mother in law to a courthouse downtown today for a hearing on her social security disability that's been pending for eons. I think you could be hobbling on one leg with only an elbow to write with and an eye patch and the social security administration would think you're faking, they'd stall for months, lose your paperwork a couple times and then insist you show up for a hearing anyway. My mother in law has both legs, both hands and two semi-decent eyes, but you get the point. Anyway, she's talked with the legal firm who is representing her but it's of such a size that they have different folks for different tasks. And thus, even after years of communication, faxing reports, and office visits to discuss her case, she hadn't actually met face to face with the attorney who would be representing her to the judge. When they spoke late last week, finalizing plans for the hearing today (time to arrive, etc) and he told her that she'd be able to spot him because he'd be the "one with the pony tail," I thought: innnnnnnteresting. If you can identify yourself in a room crowded with people by a pony tail (which he clearly knew no one else in the room would be caught dead with), shouldn't that tell you something? Like maybe the world moved on while you continued living in a time when a man with an itty-bitty clump of hair hanging 3" down his back like a furry slug that slithered out of his collar was cool? But at least he had the fanny pack and pinky mood ring to bring up his professional air.

We won't know for a couple months if she will be approved by SSA. If she's not approved even after having umpteen doctors and psychologists provide opinions that all say the woman cannot work because of constant pain she isn't fabricating, I shall have no choice but to blame the pony tail. Not the attorney but the actual...pony...tail.