Aidan Court: Abstracts from Recent Decisions

Case No. 2005-02
People v. Elmo

The People's case was twofold. First, the people contended that Elmo was not an animal. Second, the people contended that Elmo could make a reasonable individual "a little bit nervous." Therefore, it was argued, Elmo should be banished.

The defense stipulated to the fact that Elmo is not an animal. However, in rebuttal the defense pointed out that Elmo, being a monster, was not a person either and, in view of People v. Ernie and People v. Dapper Dan the case should be dismissed. On the second charge, the defense offered expert witness testimony from Mommy showing that Elmo was a "sweetheart" and that his high, squeaky voice could not reasonably make anyone nervous. The defense suggested that the people are confusing Elmo with more "nerve-inducing" creatures such as Nordy.

After hearing the testimony, Judge Aidan pointed out that Elmo's animal-ness was imaterial citing the recent decisions of People v. Piggy and People v. Little Piggy and hence not, per se, grounds for dismissal. Despite expert witness testimony to the contrary, The court, citing personal experience, was persuaded by the arguments of the prosecution pointing out that high squeaky voices can make reasonably people nervous again (In re: People v. Piggy) where the court found that Piggy had a high voice and that his voice was also occasionally squeaky.

The court sided with the plaintiff and sentenced Elmo to banishment. Elmo was remanded Elmo to the custody of the Sergeant at Arms, Daddy.

Banishment

As you may know, I banished Piggy from my bedroom about two months ago. His offense: I had a dream about him in which he moved. Therefore, while I still like Piggy very much in the daytime, he's not welcome at night. More recently, I've banished several other guys from being in my bedroom. They are: Nordy, Ernie, and Dapper Dan. Nordy's offense was that he had too much personality, that he was too human in a way. Ernie and Dapper Dan are representations of humans, as opposed to animals, so they are not welcome.

The current priority rules for sleeping in my crib are: (1) You're a bear---even better is you're a big fluffy bear; (2) You're a bunny--even better if you are owned by Mommy; (3) You are a Pooh character; (4) You are an anonymous stuffed animal without a distinctive voice or personality.

This car is ready to go

One of my favorite Daddy activities is to drive my (mainly) Hot Wheels cars along the floor of one of the hallways in our house. This activity has actually evolved somewhat from when we first started doing this. A few months ago, I used to like to organize my cars in a parking lot in the hall. There they would sit and Daddy would occasionally request that one of the car was ready to go for a drive down the hall. Often, I would tell him that the car was tired and needed to rest inthe parking lot. Sometimes, I would drive the car myself down the hall by pushing it---holding on all the way as it went down the hall. Still, I would occasionally let Daddy push one of the cars and it would go zipping down the hall, hopefully avoiding a "catastrophe."

Now, I'm more interested in zipping the cars down the hall myself. They spend a lot less time in the parking lot and more time on the road. I'm getting to be quite good at this. Some of the cars made it to the end of the hall, bounced off the wall, and managed to be turned in the right direction to go around the corner of the hall. I also like to put my cars on a big green car transporter turck that I got for Christmas. Daddy will sometimes make protesting noises on behalf of the cars since inevitably they fall off the truck when it jackknifes during his ride. I like driving my cars.

Aidan & Morgan

While Daddy was randomly searching my name in Google, he came across this interesting connection between the names Aidan, Morgan, and the Arthurian legend. Apparently, some sources suggest that a King Aidan was the father of the historic King Arthur (who apparently wasn't acutally a king). Arthur's sister was, of course, Morgan (Le Fey). Hence, an unexpected Aidan & Morgan connection. For those interested in reading the "research" underlying these findings, click here.

Faults and Fixes

One of my favorite Christmas presents was not actually given to me, but rather given to Daddy. It's a book by David Leadbetter called 80 Faults and Fixes. It's about all the different things that can go wrong in hitting a golf ball and tips on how to fix those things. What I like about it are the pictures, which feature golfers in brightly colored clothing being advised by a seemingly all-knowing coach.

One page that is particularly interesting is where a golfer is trying to hit a short shot onto the green. Instead, he hits a line drive that breaks a nearby window. The picture shows the window breaking and the "coach" character looking distressed. On the next page, the "coach" shows the golfer how to hit a nice rainbow shot. I wonder what happens to to the golf ball that went through the window. Do the people in the house give it back? Does the golf ball end up in their "movie room"? Do they keep the golf ball and play with it themselves?

The page that merits revisiting shows a skeleton wearing golf shoes, a golf hat, and holding a club. The skeleton is stuck inside a deep sand trap, which Daddy calls a bunker. The point of the picture is that this unlucky golfer could never get out of the bunker so he ended up just being bones. On the next page, the apparently reanimated golfer is being shown by the coach character (who is wearing a quite interesting white hat) how to get out of the bunker. When Daddy and I went to the golf course yesterday, I checked out several of the bunkers I came across to see if there are any bones in them. Happily, there weren't. Faults and Fixes is my top read for 2005.

Doctor Visit

Yesterday, I went for my annual checkup. The doctor was very silly. She told me that I had kitty cats in my ears and that I had eaten an elephant and a zebra for lunch. She also pronounced me in tip-top condition. Here are some vital statistics about me: I'm now 36 1/2" tall. That's not very tall relative to other boys my age (25th percentile), but it does shoot me over the three foot barrier. I weigh 32 1/2 pounds, which makes me exactly average (50th percentile) among boys my age. Somehow, they stopped measuring my head, which was the one physical characteristic where I was in the upper percentiles. Because of my vegetarian tendencies, they decided to give me a blood test to see if I have enough iron. I was very brave. In fact, when they pricked my finger, I said it tickled. (I also got 2 stickers for being brave.) The report back said that I have plenty of iron. While I don't like going to the doctor due to dislike of shots I did like some of the toys in the "well" waiting area, so I played with those for a bit before and afterward. Happily, I did not need shots this time, and I won't need any more until just before kindergarten. Mommy always worries when she takes me to the doctor since there are lots of sick people there, so we're hoping I don't come down with anything as a result of my "well" visit. Last year, I came down with my second bout of stomach flu not long after my "well" visit.

Plows

After having visited the snow (twice) during my trip back east, I've decided that it is winter in the Island of Sodor (where Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends live). Winter is a tricky time if you're a train becuase snow can easily block the tracks or you can get hit by the random avalanche as well. On Saturday, faced with increasing number of snow related "cathatrophes" on the line, Daddy and I got together to build some plows for my engines so they could mke it through the snow. Daddy found some construction paper in colors to match each engine and then drew a plow pattern for me to cut out. With a little help, I cut out a plow for Thomas and a plow for Percy and Daddy fastened the plows on with scotch tape. Next, I made my own plow design for Henry. It was a bit jagged on the bottom to really push the snow out of the way. We taped that plow on too. Soon, the trains were busy shuttling freight around Brendam Bay. Occasionally they would run into snow drifts, but the plows enabled them to push through.

Hooray for plows.