Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Adulting (or...Jury Duty)

Today I had to go to jury duty. I'm all for helping my community, but honestly... sucked.

Before today, I'd never been to jury duty before. A few years ago I received a summons in the mail, but when I called in the night before as instructed, I wasn't needed anymore. Yay! To me, jury duty always felt like one of those things that's supposed to happen to us as adults, but (in my mind) it's not supposed to happen to me.

That is my teenage mentality showing. I know, I still have a lot of growing up to do.

kanye west gif
Kanye understands.

Anyway, as before, I called last night to find out that this time I actually did need to show up. Well, dammit. So I got out of work for the morning and went to bed early. Luckily, I live literally five minutes from the courthouse, so I didn't have to worry about parking or anything. I just woke up, threw on my "business casual" attire (their words, and in my case this means black slacks, a blouse, cardigan and wedges that were too small) and walked on over.

The first unexpected thing to happen was that the building I was supposed to be in did not have the same address as the building my summons said I needed to be in. So that was awkward. Since I pass by it almost everyday I had a pretty good feeling I'd figure it out (I did), but that's not the point.

The second weird thing to happen was when I felt extremely overdressed. The phone recording said not to dress casual, but here was everyone else wearing hoodies and ripped jeans. In a way this also made me feel pleased with myself (as in, yes I know how to follow directions, thanks). But at the same time I wouldn't have worn those stupid shoes if I knew I could get away with sandals.

The next weird thing to happen was finding out that five other people I knew were all called for jury duty with me. The first one I was happy to see; a friend from one of the theatres I work at. He spotted me walking in, and surprisingly we got to be seat buddies for the entire eight hours we were there. Unfortunately, the other four people I kind of didn't want to see. I think it's ok to say that here because 1) I'm great at dodging people I don't want to talk to (my greatest skill, really) and 2) We're distant enough that it's not like they're going to find my blog.

The final weird thing (but I guess not really) to happen was that I actually had to sit in a courtroom. For six hours. I don't know. I guess I didn't think that part would actually happen. Like, they would decide while I was still in the juror assembly room that they didn't need me anymore. But no. I sat in the courtroom, which was cool for the first five minutes, and then we waited...and waited...

cookie monster gif

...and waited, until they FINALLY chose a panel of jurors, and we were released.

On our way out, we had to check back at the juror assembly room to turn in our supplies, and the docent thought it'd be fun to joke around and say we had to stick around for another judge needing jurors. Nice effort, but after that long of a day, I'm not feelin' it, friend.

aqua teen hunger force, meatwad,

And that is my super exciting post for the day.