Jury Duty

I finally got nabbed: a letter came in the mail a month ago notifying me that I was up for jury duty. While this letter is opened with a groan by normal people, for me, it was greeted with cheers. Illustrating my current level of job satisfaction, the only thing I saw was a ticket out of work for a few days, no matter how boring the alternative.

Things like this bring out the grandiose dreamer in me. It’s like buying a lottery ticket; I rarely do so because it emotionally exhausts me. Before the drawing even occurs, I’ve not only determined how I’ll use the money, but also who's not getting a penny of it. My planning continues until I’ve become stingy with hypothetical money! Who does that? I do; I see the warped potential in every possibility and plan accordingly. My jury duty letter evoked similar grandiose visions. I could see it: sitting in a trial involving a constitutional crisis while I call for order and reason in the jury room, shouting, “Now let’s everyone just settle down here!” (Doesn’t everyone dream of yelling something like that?) Law and Order would make an episode based upon my skills as a juror. September 17 was to be my day for legal greatness. (dun-dun)

I arrived, curious to see what a jury of my peers looked like. Apparently, my peer is a sixty-something white woman who dresses in colors otherwise only seen in sherbet, and totes one of those overpriced quilted bags. It was like walking into Stepford, forty years after the fact. Of the 68 of us, 64 were white; I counted one Indian woman, one black man, and two black women. Soon, I deduced that I was the lone liberal in the room. We five pariahs sat near each other in the same corner, with an unspoken pact that when the time came, we'd go down fighting.

The man sitting in front of me chatted with the man to his left, sharing his aborted plan to wear his most offensive t-shirt so he’d get dismissed. He asked his new friend if his “Kill All The Gays And Democrats” t-shirt would do the trick. The other man supposed it would, and they enjoyed a good-natured chuckle. Good times.

Then there was that guy. He had thick, silver, neatly parted hair and a voice that naturally (and unfortunately) bounced off the walls. He was a DJ and suffered from the egomania that accompanies local fame present in a person who rarely escapes the metro area. He bragged of his appearances in parades, his casual friendship with Larry Sprinkle, the chief meteorologist of the NBC affiliate. Beside him sat a gaggle of women who craved to be charmed as much as he craved to charm them. I telepathically begged them to stop; they were only encouraging him. To pass the time, he asked the gaggle to hand over their purses so he could go through them and announce what was in each. Apparently not accustomed to saying No, they complied. They handed over their purses and allowed him to reveal their contents. Things got a little awkward when he asked, “So what do you need the prescription medication for?” Suddenly we all found a reason to examine our shoes.

This was the kind of guy to supply answers to questions never posed to him. During one of the brief, blessed silences, the man loudly asked the gaggle, “Do you know why your husbands never listen to you?” No, I silently begged them, don’t bite, ignore him, just don’t ask, “No, why?” Yet this was precisely what they did. He proceeded with a rehearsed monologue of sexist stereotypes (women as emotionally unhinged talkers who don’t understand the logic of men), and the women couldn’t get enough. Unbelievably they’d prod him with, “That’s so true! That’s just like my husband!” He ate it up and sat back in his chair, folded his arms, no doubt dreaming of the story he’d have for Larry Sprinkle during their next parade.

My immediate neighbors provided no relief. The man to my left was absorbed in a book by Newt Gingrich. Surpassing his questionable taste was the man to my right, who spent most of the seven hours with his fingers in his mouth. Biting, sucking, removing them to evaluate, then shoving them in again. I’m slightly germaphobic as it is; this KILLED me.

Proving that this was shaping up to be a laughably horrible day, beside me on the wall hung a picture of George W. Bush, smirking at me. It was a knowing smirk, it was a “Who’s your daddy now?” smirk. I wanted to say, I’m not here for you! I’m here to get out of work! But alas, the smirking continued; I was in his house now. Then that guy turned on the television, which held such promise as a tool of distraction. No such luck. The consensus of the room was that FOX News would be the perfect background noise for my hell. All they reported was the OJ scandal and the possibility of a Britney Spears custody battle. Later I learned that during this time, Bush tapped his new AG and Clinton unveiled her healthcare plan. Both went unmentioned, but I did watch a 7-second clip of OJ standing up then sitting down in a courtroom at least 82 times.

As always, I had a book with me, ready to escape my surroundings and hide in the pages. It was Walden, the ultimate in escape books. Yet there is not a less suitable environment in which to read Walden than a boxy room packed with chairs and right-wingers, with Dubya lurking over my shoulder. When I read Thoreau’s line, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation,” I cried a little.

At the end of the seven hours, the judge summoned us to the courtroom, where he told us that the defendants had just pleaded guilty and our service as jurors would not be needed. He also told us our seven hours sitting in a waiting room made us model Americans but I can’t remember exactly how. All I knew was that I was able to go home and return to the comparably pleasant experience of work the following day.