Jury Doody

The next day, I get out of bed to the sound of my alarm for the first time in months. I have the dubious honor of attending jury duty. I can think of nothing more mind numbing and skeevy than waiting in the Assembly Room with hundreds of other dutiful, miserable people who will demonstrate defiance by not bathing for days in advance.

I dry my hair. I apply makeup. I put on an outfit befitting of a court appearance. If a murderer is going to be hauled off to the electric chair because of my contribution to the verdict, the least I can do is look like I took the whole thing seriously. I schlep with all of humanity at rush hour to the court house parking garage. I am overwhelmed with dread about the endlessly boring day I am sure to have.

Walk across the campus. I pass all the food trucks and long for bacon. I notice there is a "food truck" that doesn't sell food at all. It is instead a roving bail bond business on wheels. I secretly decide that the bail bondsman must be armed and look like a lunatic. How else could he safely and handle bail money in a 3 foot by 4 foot cart with a window? A couple of industrious thugs could literally roll his cart onto the back of a flat bed and leave with it. If he happened to come along for the ride, it would not be for long.

I go through the metal detector 3 times. My keys. My belt buckle. My big artsy necklace. Culprits all. My fault for not knowing to remove them before walking through. While one officer "wanded" me, the other had his hand poised on his service revolver. Seriously? Have you seen the other people coming through these doors? It is hard to separate the jurists from the defendants. Clearly, I am one of the good guys, in spite of my weapons-concealing accessories.

After what seems like reams of paperwork stating and restating my name and address and date of birth and occupation (blank) and emergency contact (in case some madman slips by with a machete and decides to hack us all to collops) and all of my addresses for the past seven years, I find a seat next to an older man who smells like Icy Hot and denture adhesive. And is a mouth breather.

I almost get up and move, but it is hard to see if going deeper into the room would yield a better seating selection. The far end of the room is like the back of the bus. Nothing good ever happens there. I don't see an obvious opening and hesitate to forfeit the seat I've claimed. The only thing that could make this day worse would be having to stand for the duration.

Or so I think.

The big flat screen TV is tuned to Kelly and Michael. As in Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan. She is as supremely annoying as anyone I've ever seen. And all the little forced cutesiness that she pretends she has no idea is cute could not be more grating. I want to scream. She also made some crack about being fat. She's practically invisible. I look feverishly about for the clicker.

I sit down and open my book, willing myself to ignore the daytime television drivel.

I get a text,

Oh, no. It's Mom.