There are different terms in UrbanDictionary.com for the sorts of decision-making and executive function that sometimes lead to disasters like arrests, confinement, police beat-downs or, worst of all, appearances on the highest court of dumbth in the land: the Maury Povich Show, now known simply as “Maury.” “Ghetto logic” and “trailer logic” are a bit unfair in that people of every socioeconomic background, including wealthy people (especially in Hollywood), can make the same doofbang executive functioning failures. The difference between wealthy and low-income bad calls is that a large pile of money can sometimes un-Maury a problem or keep it from public or courthouse attention. We need a word to describe this phenomenon. “Maurylogic”, “maurylogical” and “maurylogician” should enter the lexicon of the American language.
I grew up as the son of a nurse and am the older brother of a nurse as well. Nursing is probably the only profession outside of the law that can provide a complete panorama of our species’s maurylogical glory, though prostitution and police work might come close. There are petty example of maurylogic such as slicing a bagel knife with one hand while holding the bagel between one’s thumb and other fingers, yielding a predictable and avoidable gash between one’s thumb and forefinger. Sometimes medical providers can demonstrate maurylogic as well, such as by stopping bleeding from the head through a tourniquet around the neck. Other examples abound.
A few maurylogicians to ponder.
1) She who drove while revoked from her driving while revoked hearing in the same vehicle previously impounded after a driving while revoked arrest – you guessed it, by the same law enforcement officer who lay in wait at the exit.
2) An executive who directed a recruiter not to hire so many of, per the transcript, “those damned blacks” and when challenged on this maurylogic and its serious legal implications by his appalled board of directors, snapped back “don’t get all [edited] Afrocentric on me.”
3) A bit of a throwback, the most maurylogical lawyer in Maryland history is probably poor Mr. Fellner of Fellner v. Bar Association of Baltimore City, whose cheapness regarding a parking meter led him to commit career suicide not by gun, not by cop but by hardware slugs. Poor return on investment; money spent drunk at the roulette wheel would have been far better.
4) Police routinely take calls from maurylogicians who want their stolen meth or weed tracked down and returned to them. Maurylogic aside, there arguably should be a per se immunity rule in such cases because the public harm and policing priority of theft is arguably greater than the public harm of some or all illegal drug possession. The problem is that maurylogicians who call and confess to cops to possessing now-stolen dope don’t make the best witnesses in judiciary committee hearings in state legislatures. I digress.
5) Believing what the law is or might be, rather than ascertaining what it is from someone with a law license to lose and $100K+ malpractice insurance on hand, leads to all kinds of maurylogical hilarity. Buying an SUV for $30K, but not spending $240 for a consult with a lawyer as to whether you can just take it back within 3 days for the heck of it, makes for a tough encounter when you drive it over the dealer’s curb and try to get your money back. Hallucinating that you cannot be fired from your job because you are in something you have called a “probationary period”, OR because you have passed that period, makes you the father, my friend. Believing what Jay-Z implies in “99 Problems” about search and seizure law re: dope in the trunk will give you 100 problems – starting with your defense attorney’s robust fee.
6) An EBT card is an electronic benefit card used to buy a fairly limited range of food. Best Buy doesn’t sell food, at least not EBT food. So if you go into a Best Buy and try to buy an iPad with an EBT card, you are the father.
The list goes on. Any working criminal defense attorney can give many more examples: smoking (not just possessing, lighting up) pot while driving in daylight on public roads; robbing people but forgetting to take or alter the license plate on the getaway vehicle (how you liking the Cut, fellows?); showing up drunk and disorderly to your DUI trial and going through not only an alcohol evaluation but an on-the-spot breathalyzer; etc. Just as you can have an entire Hello Kitty lifestyle replete with automobiles, computers, kitchens and adult novelties, you can probably live your whole life the Maury way. Many maurylogicians do so.
I don’t mean to pick on Mr. Povich personally; I recall him from, I think, the 1980s as a newscaster in Washington DC for Channel 5, and liked him. It’s the show that has endumbthed us.
