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!