Over-Hearing

Yesterday, in the car on the way to work I was listening to NPR and they were airing the Alito hearing. I'm not hugely interested in this laborious process, but somehow I got a little caught up in it. The best part was when Diane Fienstein, "Democrat, California" started asking questions. Yeah, I thought let's see if my state can bring it. Never mind the fact that she isn't actually my senator, that'd be Barbara Boxer, but I couldn't help but claim her just a little, because she was so condescending and bitchy. She would ask awesome hypothetical questions and when Alito would not answer it by saying things like, "well I can only speak in terms of actual cases..." she'd say, "That isn't my question." and "I don't think you understand what it is I'm asking you." At one point he actually appologized. I think what I like the most was the similarity it bore to a typical retail transaction. Senator Feinstein is the good consumer, trying to buy a dining room chair and Alito is the sales associate who enjoys with-holding information because he can, or maybe he's just stupid. It plays out in the following way:

West Elm (Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica), busy and full of twenty-somethings sales people with headphones.

Consumer: Hi, I'd like to know the availability of this dining chair right here.
Sales Associate: That one? Which color?
C: Blue, but online it looks like you don't have blue, so I guess brown.
SA: Yeah, we are soldout of the blue, how many of the brown do you want?
C: How many do you have?
SA: How many do you want?
C: Well, that depends on how many you have...Ideally I'd like six blue chairs, but we'd only need 1 chair to take home and see if it works with our table.
SA: So, how many do you want?
C: Could you just check?
SA Makes loud and annoying call for a stock check
20 minutes later
SA: We don't have six. And this line is discontinued, we'll be getting our Spring line in two weeks.
C: I don't think you understand my question, "Is there any chair that we can take home today?"
SA: We can order them for you.