8 Annoyed People

So I had jury duty. My civic duty. (Duty! I said, "Doodie! Ha ha ha ha ha!") I received the notice and thought indignantly, "They can't call me! I already served!" And then I checked my files and noticed that I had served 3 years and 10 days ago. You can be called every 3 years. They so have my number.

It was fine. The court is conveniently located, although I found it disconcerting when I walked in and the security guards let me in with a "She's not a criminal" and a "Remember: Guilty, guilty, guilty!" Only jury members are allowed in the courthouse before 8:30 a.m., so the folks who were waiting to go in were clearly there for some sort of trial. Something just seemed wrong about the security guard's comments.

Anyway, I entered a small room of people. I had lucky number 11. I sat. And sat. And sat. Did a crossword puzzle. Read a book I'm really enjoying. Then we watched a video on the jury system. Now, I know that it's horrible to pick on people with any kind of disability, but really: Reshoot that damn video. To have the superior court judge open up the video on how to perform at jury duty was just torture in a snickering kind of way. The woman has a lisp that makes her sound incwedibwy wike Baba Wawa. And, remarkably, I'm the only one with a 12 year old's sense of humor and the only one who sat smirking in the corner.

Then it was time to impanel the jury. We had to answer "Present" when our name was called. One guy didn't say present. He was excused from jury. Eight folks sat on the jury (after evidence had been presented, lots who have been drawn to see which two of the eight would be alternates). Guy who didn't say "Present" was of course excused. Jurors 4 and 6 were no shows. So guess who got lucky seat number 8?

I actually thought it would be fun, and I didn't mind. I had childcare arranged for the afternoon. I was a little worried when they said there was a possibility the trial could go into the next day, as I'm scheduled to carve pumpkins in Doodles's classroom and then take the kids to Adam's office Halloween party, but I certainly could have managed.

So it was going to be an interesting experience. Except. Except. Except it wasn't. The assistant D.A. seemed like a nice enough guy, but he was clearly a total neophyte. He'd barely breathe before the defense attorney said, "Objection!" and the judge said, "Sustained." That poor defense attorney never got her tushie in the seat, she was up so much objecting. The assistant D.A. would lose his place or his train of thought. I felt like I was sitting in an SNL satire of Boston. The accents! The detective showed up in--no joke--a trench coat. The police officer was clearly nervous. And the defendant was a Boston stereotype if ever one existed. And before the trial even got good--before we found out who "Bruno" was; yes! there was a "Bruno!"--the trial ended on some procedural point, of which we could not be informed. Blah.

But now I'm in the clear for the next three years. And I've done my civic duty. Doodie. Heh heh. Still makes me laugh.