A confession: I’m 44 years old and have voted in every election for the past 15 years or so (and every presidential and midterm election since I was 18) – but I’ve never served on a jury. I never even received a summons until we moved to this house … maybe I moved too much? In any event, I soon started receiving them regularly, but got excused so I could attend classes and later because I’m self-employed and need to, like, make money. Once I did try to go and do my civic duty, but here’s the true story of why it didn’t work out.
8:00 am, and I’m standing in a huge line of prospective jurors, loitering outside the courthouse. When they finally marched us inside, I… got lost. I trailed along behind a couple of people who looked like they knew what they were doing, but as it turned out their ultimate destination was … the office where one requests an excuse from duty. At that point I was pretty disgusted with the whole situation. So I went ahead and got excused; it was easier than finding my way to wherever I was supposed to report for duty. (Perhaps as karmic retribution, the bus I was riding on the way home broke down.)
About a month ago (when both Mercury and Mars were retrograde) I got another summons, to report tomorrow. I’m no longer in school. Business is pretty quiet. And by God, I was all set to go. Then I looked at the fine print: “You’re a prospective alternate juror,” it read (I am paraphrasing). “Call us the day before you’re supposed to appear. Maybe you won’t have to.” Sure enough, I called at the appointed hour and “your duty has been postponed. Keep calling until we decide we want you.”
County of San Diego, hear ye, hear ye: Don’t mess around – you need to grab me while you can. Before I lose heart. Before I get too much work.
Before I get lost.
