Jury Duty . . .

You get the summons in the mail and groan.

Nobody really wants to serve on a jury, but it’s something almost all of us with a driver’s license will have to suffer through one day. It’s our “civic duty” – gag me!

I got my first summons and had to report to the court house yesterday. It’s amazing how many people think they are way more important than everyone else so they should be excused.

First off, I was Juror 206 out of ???. All that mattered was Jurors 1 thru 210 had to report, unless you had already been excused. Apparently, 114 people had come up with good excuses when the summons first showed up in their mailboxes because of the 210, only 96 of us had to report. I should have put something on the form – what’s the most outrageous, hardly believable, but somewhat probable excuse I could have come up with?

Request for excuse: I can not report for jury duty on October 20th because I’m sure my parents are coming to get me on that day. I was left on the door step of the local Walgreen’s with a broken locket inscribed with 1020 W. From what I understand, there was a flash of light in the sky and a shiny disk flew away after I was placed in a plastic basket that had been left outside. Each year on October 20th, I sit patiently at the Walgreen’s, waiting for their return. I’ll know it’s them because they will have the other half of the locket with the rest of my real name on it. You see, “1020” must refer to October 20th & the “W” is the first letter of my first name, which is really “Weglesnar”. I have a spooky feeling this is going to be the year. The courts certainly would not want to be responsible for me missing out on this once in a lifetime event.

You think they would buy it?

Of the people who didn’t have written excuses and had to show up, three stood out:

One lady showed up with her baby in a stroller. She claimed her sitter had an emergency so she had to bring her son with her. For all I know, she borrowed a kid from a neighbor. Good gig – I’ll have to remember that for next time. Can you just imagine me dragging in Cupie? I’m sure I could train her to annoy everyone with a bunch of silly kid questions until they offered to pay me to take her away. Wait a minute, she is pretty good at that silly kid question thing. It wouldn’t take much to crank it up to REALLY annoying.

Another guy lamented about the fact that he was leaving for an “executive conference” on Tuesday. If he got picked for jury duty, he would be the only executive in his company not in attendance. Wah, wah, wah. “All the other kids got to go!” It was probably some motivational pow-wow where they all go boating, deep sea fishing, or some other unnecessary executive perk-ing.

A nurse in a chemo-therapy office said her boss was probably just going nuts today. “I don’t know how they are going to make it through the day without me” – can you say “DIVA!” Apparently, she asked for an excuse letter, but her employer would not provide one because they feel it is a person’s civic duty to serve. If her absence was really going to put them in some kind of terrible bind, surely, they would have made an exception. Anybody who thinks they are irreplaceable is in for a rude awakening one day.

Sure, I did my share of complaining. Who wouldn’t? I sat there all day and never saw the inside of a courtroom. I complained about what I could have done instead of sitting there, but I knew I didn’t have a real excuse so I sucked it up. I certainly did not make comments that would insinuate that my time was more important than anyone else’s.

Life is life – get on with it!

Silver lining:
I got to read the first couple chapters of a new book – I didn’t even have to sneak away to the bathroom for peace & quiet.
I discovered my electronic “Sudoku” game needed new batteries because it had been left on last time someone (probably me) played with it. I’ll know to check it next time.
I now know how long I can sit in a metal chair before my butt goes numb – it’s about 1 ½ hours, in case you were wondering.