Episode 9 of Growing Up Fisher was all about Mel schooling everyone in debate. First, it was getting a desk the next day that was out of stock, next it was litigating with the pizza boy on why his pizza should be free and finally he attempts to win Henry's confidence back by showing up Uncle Glen and selling more than forty raffle tickets in seconds. The rest of the family begins to get frustrated and even irritated that Mel always ends up getting what he wants until Henry attends his first court case with Mel and Mel gets hammered. No matter Mel's reasoning, the rest of the Fisher family took away from this that dad fails too.

FAVORITES:

Once A Lawyer Always A Lawyer: While in IkenBerry (the equivalent to Ikea) getting a desk for her place Joyce finds out that her desk is not in stock despite the store guaranteeing it would be in stock. The conversation between Joyce and the IkenBerry employee is comical. The IkenBerry worker, who loves her job by the way, tells Joyce to, "take the elevator to the second floor, buy a bed and get up on the right side of it." After hearing this, Mel approaches the counter and begins his defense. With Henry at his side, he first says to Henry, "name please." Henry replies, "Trisha," and the rout is on. Mel proceeds to school her with legal jar gain and next thing you know Joyce is putting together the desk in her place. This is a whole different problem that we won't discuss.

Joyce Calls Out the Lumberjack: When returning the desk that Mel had went to bat for her about earlier, Joyce hears a number called that she believes was hers. Instead, it was a hefty lumberjack that went up to the counter and Joyce took it upon herself to call him out. First she calls him on his cargo pants and pony tail. "Maybe you'll find it in your hundreds of pockets," she told him. Later in the rant she tells him she may be having a bad hair day but he's having a bad hair life. Then, in true Joyce form she finds out from Katie that she was totally wrong and her ticket number was stuck to her clothes. She was # 321 and he was #312. Poor Joyce, she is a mess.

LIFE TRUTH:

Nobody's Perfect: Although Mel seems to do things right all the time and when he doesn't people probably give him the benefit of the doubt because he's blind, he still fails and isn't perfect either. On the single court case that Henry sits in on , Mel gets blasted by the judge and loses the case. Like any lawyer, Mel has a hard time dealing with defeat. He tells Henry he will appeal it and win but deep down I think Mel knows that this one is going down as an "L" in the record books.

In my life, I feel as though many people act as though I always have the right answer. I don't know if this is because I am blind and have been successful or what the reason is. I will tell you that I am the first person to say that I am as far from perfect as one can get and I fail many times and probably more often than most. I have done a speech at NASA and totally botched the message. I have been late for or forgotten about important meetings. I made a fool out of myself by walking into the women's bathroom or running into poles on the sidewalk. Everyone fails and those that think they are perfect are often just insecure about something in their life and are using the appearance of supreme confidence as a front to cover up their weaknesses.

Those that are blind/VI are not perfect either and not all of our failures are just because we are blind. In fact, probably most of the failures we have are not because we are blind. Most of the things that we do wrong that are related to our blindness are probably more like habits because we keep doing the same thing over and over and not learning a new way to do it in order to succeed. Mel lost the case in this episode not because he was blind but because the other side was better on that day. The majority of times when I fail its not because I'm blind, its because I wasn't prepared or I just made a mistake. Nobody's perfect, even Mel Fisher!

Growing Up Fisher is Like Growing up Scheidies Episode 9: Once a Lawyer Always a Lawyer