Once upon a time, there was a meeting in Clearwater. It was to be a glorious meeting between three government agencies, and the people who represent them. Anticipation ran rampant as more people filed into the room. Each side of the table came armed with enough ‘gotchas’ to destroy all of the egos in the room, five times over. One pregnant question hung in the room as the agreed upon time came and went, “would our attorney show up?”

She got there fifteen minutes late.

Expectations around the room rejoiced.

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We learned that a case wanted to be closed. This begged the question, “can a case have suicidal tendencies?”

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“We are confused”, one person stated. “I am getting sleepy”, I thought to myself.

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One gracious soul congratulated our agency for recently reaching the one billion dollars collected milestone, and for the recent favorable press we received. Someone muttered (under her breath), “yeah, that’s great as long as you sent it to the right place.” You could have scooped up the cynicism with a shovel and thrown it across the room. What made the statement classy was the understated manner in which it was said. Three cheers for subtlety!