Wednesday, March 9, 2005

JUROR #0

Two weeks ago I received a jury summons.  Most people would freak out and frantically look for reasons to get out of pulling jury duty, but I WANTED to go!  The instructions said to call the night before to find out if I was needed to appear.  I called last night and held my breath in anticipation as the recording blurted out the pre-recorded message.  And then it said it... the numbers of the jurors who must report... and my number fell within the group that had to report!  I was ecstatic!

I was also sick!  However, being the loyal citizen that I am and eager to do my civic duty, I was up bright and early this morning, even though I felt like something the road crew scraped off the asphalt the night before... I had jury duty!  Visions of Judge Judy danced through my head and I just flew right on past the court house!  Dang, I looked for a place to turn around at and was just about to do a perfectly executed U-turn when I saw the No U Turn sign!  Its a good thing I saw that when I did cos you can bet there were a dozen uniformed officers licking the Krispy Kreme off of their fingers as they watched from their parked squad cars all along the road.  Not today buddies!  I could just see it now... me showing up late for my summons because I got pulled over for making an illegal turn right infront of the courthouse.  Yeah, they'd book me right there and assign all the other jurors to MY case!

Well, I turned into a parking garage just as if I had intended to go there all along and started walking back to the courthouse.  Unfortunately I had driven in one side and walked out the other side so I was completely turned around!  I walked almost 4 blocks to get to the building right across the street!  And then, once in the building I had no clue where to go!  How can you get lost in a 4 story building?  I don't know, but I did it!  Finally I found the room I was supposed to be in, filled out the paper work and waited... 2 hours later they released all but 20 of us.  I was not one of the 20.  I suspect the judge had seen me walking in circles outside the courthouse, and then going up and down the hallwayinside and made a point to find out who I was because anyone who was too stupid to find their way from the parking lot to the building and then to a clearly marked room on the 4th floor wasn't going to serve on HIS jury!  Boy, I hope he wasn't watching when I left... because I just backtracked and retraced my original route.  Well, at least I know where to go if I get summoned again next year! 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol I have a very similar story...but i was almost in tears and an hour late.

Anonymous said...

Dorn! Do you need a co-pilot? My sister drives like this...drives right by the turn in and winds up going in the out lane...oh boy....nothing scares me too much any more because a friend that I was driving with turned into the oncoming lane on a major highway in New York....got some grey hair over that one!  Sandi

Anonymous said...

LMAO! You're too funny Dorn! I could just SEE you doing this!

Anonymous said...

I was picked for jury duty when I was eight months pregnant.  They said I had a legitimate "out" but I wanted to serve.  I waddled my big body in and was chosen to serve.  Wouldn't ya know it-the parties settled before I had to serve. My darn luck!
Pinky
http://journals.aol.com/JsDirtwtch/SmartestMonkey

Anonymous said...

I got my second jury notice in as many months just yesterday.  As much as you are good about it,,, I'm bad.   I've been trying to break my own leg all day so I don't have to go.  So far.. no luck... but I'm still trying.

angie