This was 2014, the era of the mason jar. I was 1.5 years past bar passage and enjoying my first few months in my dream bachelorette pad (pending a happy-for-me divorce).

I had just taken up oil painting again. I liked it in undergrad but I sucked. I don’t like sucking at anything so it was my new hobby.

Thanks to my generous 75k salary plus bonus, I could afford decent brushes and all the cleaning/blending turpentine a girl could ask for. I could even afford a rack of mason jars from the overpriced grocer in my waterfront apartment building. They proved to be very handy turpentine/brush containers.

One Sunday night I had wine, a sink full of dirty dishes, and an unfinished painting. I also had court the next day, so I wasn’t in the mood to drink wine or wash dishes. I was thirsty tho, so I filled up my last clean mason jar with water and went to work on my terrible painting.

I hated the color I blended so I didn’t even put paint brush to canvass that night. I just went to bed. Next morning I get up for court, put on my suit, and take two big swigs from my mason jar. I know it was 2, as the first one tasted weird so I tried again. (Yes, I’m an idiot).

~ 5 minutes into my 10 minute walk, I knew something was not right. I BARELY made it back to my apartment, up the 35 floor elevator, and spent the rest of the day in the bathroom. If I wasn’t napping (or other), I was sipping on milk cuz google and my cousin who was in her residency told me to do so.

I didn’t remember my missed (federal) court appearance until I had safely cleared the poison, about 36 hours later. I emailed OC but got no response before the judge’s next cattle call. So I showed up at the cattle call, unscheduled, and at the end explained this whole story in exactly 2 sentences (how I did that I’ll never remember…turpentine brain).

The judge was speechless for a solid 8-10 seconds. I’ll never forget the look on their face, basically deadpan. Judge finally says “you should be dead counsel, I guess I’m glad you’re not”. They sua sponte struck my non appearance from the record, kicked everything 2 weeks, and this post is the only time anyone has ever written about my accidentally chugging turpentine a decade ago.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Lawyertalk/comments/1cm6ing/share_the_best_reason_why_you_missed_court/

dumb bitch has a "good for her" divorce and accidentally drinks turpentine. her life seems so much better now -- her profile is 75% talking about cats. no mention of husband or children.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5526023&forum_id=2#47641914)