Jury Selection ~ Day One

I've never been one to have a bucket list or worry about regretting having not done a particular thing when I'm on my death bed. I figure that at that point regret will be pointless because I'd be dead soon and then I wouldn't care about what I hadn't done in my life.

But. There was one little thing I've always hoped I get the chance to do.

Serve on a jury.

So imagine my excitement when I received a jury questionnaire back in October from the Sheriff's office. I filled it out with great excitement, licked that envelope with a flourish and popped that sucker into the mailbox with a little "Please Lord let me get picked!"

If I was excited then, imagine how excited I was when I received a summons to appear for jury selection on January 4th.

I practically pinned it to my shirt in pride.

Today was the day. I was excited. I showered and put on a nice outfit. I wore dress shoes. And perfume. I was ready.

I got there in plenty of time, scored a fairly good parking spot and headed inside. You have to put your bag on the belt, and empty your pockets into a tray, then walk through the scanner thingy. Just like at the airport. I didn't have anything in my pocket except an unused dog poop bag. Do I leave it in my pocket? Do I put it in the tray? Pocket or tray? Tray or pocket? Decisions! I ended up putting in the the tray and the security guy picked it up and just looked at me. "Really?" he asked.

I followed all the arrows to the waiting room and when I got there I was shocked. There had to be about 300 people in that room.

Oh, and apparently I missed the memo that it was PJ Day At The Courthouse. I saw lots of pj pants going on in there.

I stood in the A-L line for about 30 minutes before I reached the desk to register. For 27 of those 30 minutes I had some weirdie standing behind me sniffing my hair. He kept asking me what I used and so I told him. "No," he said. "It's something else...."

What?!

I chatted with a very pleasant woman while we waited. I have always said that if you stand next to me for longer than five minutes, I'll chat you up and make you my friend.

They had me stand in a second line, where I was asked if there was any reason why I wouldn't be able to serve on a jury if selected. Apparently being a stay-at-home mother with four children in her care isn't important enough to be excused.

More waiting.

We watched a video telling us what to expect throughout this process. There was a construction worker character who talked about his hurt feelings when he wasn't selected. Twenty minutes later he was talking about what he wore while he was on the jury and what the experience was like.

Inconsistencies!

I nudged the dude next to me. "Did you catch that?" I asked him. He looked at me blankly. "That guy forgot he already told us he was rejected for duty, now he's talking about what it was like to serve. Very inconsistent."

Less than five minutes later he moved seats.

Whatev.

More waiting.

Then the big surprise. I was on panel 101, but there were still about 150 people from panel 100 from yesterday. I slowly realized that I wasn't going to be finished with this today.

Shortly after 11am a clerk came out to dismiss all of panel 101 with the orders to return to the courthouse tomorrow 9am.

Dang.

While walking out of the courthouse I started to get anxious because I had an extremely important appointment scheduled for Thursday morning that I couldn't miss.

I felt like my morning had been completely wasted. I called Ian who was able to reschedule the appointment for Friday instead. I'm praying like mad that I will be finished with this tomorrow.

Not the fun I was expecting.

I'm going to have to make my own fun tomorrow.

I'll let you know how Day 2 goes.