Better call Ron

A Texan lawyer has helped the internet through its Handforth Parish Council comedown by donning a sad kitten filter in virtual court.

“I believe you have a filter turned on in your video settings,” advised the judge, but attorney Rod Ponton, apparently the most mature person on Earth, said: “I’ve got my assistant here and she’s trying to remove it but … I’m prepared to go forward with it. I’m here live. I’m not a cat.”

Just how he wrested an aura of integrity out of the situation should be studied for decades to come, and maybe even put into practice outside of Zoom by the right kind of maverick, Saul Goodman type.

Granted, in the real world this technique would require actually dressing up as a cat, which is obviously going to be far more difficult to pass off as an accident than clicking a wrong button. But if you could somehow find a way to channel Ponton’s sobering pragmatism and brush it off as no big deal – perhaps you spilled coffee down your suit and your costume-designer spouse had left an outfit from Cats in your car – you’d be instantly asserting yourself as the leading clawthority in the room.