Jury Duty (well, sort of...)

Okay, so today was "Jury Duty Day". I got to skip work (because, we all know that there are no work related excuses for missing jury duty) armed with nothing more than a good book, a Cosmo (yes, I know. Cosmo is garbage, but sometimes reading trash is just so much...fun. Stop judging me), and my jury summons.

I arrived promptly at 9:30 AM. I would have been earlier, but I forgot that parking downtown is...hmmmm...a challenge. It didn't matter, though, because I was on time regardless (and by "on time" I really mean that I wasn't the last juror to arrive. If you are into specifics then, YES! I was exactly 8 minutes late. Blame it on what happens next. Again with the judgments...!).

I was briefly slowed down by security. Even though I lived in DC for two years, it didn't dawn on me until I was standing in line that I would have to go through a metal detector. I definitely would have put more thought into my outfit if I had remembered that little tidbit of information. I had on pants that...uh...definitely required a belt. So, when I had to remove the belt my oh-so-cute-but-a-tad-baggy-because-I-bought-them-on-sale-and-they-didn't-have-my-size-so-I-bought-a-size-too-big-and-never-had-them-taken-in pants almost fell down. Despite my attempt to hide this fact, it still got a giggle from the security lady. I knew I should have worn jeans!

The only reason that I didn't wear jeans was because I watched 20 minutes of LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT the night before, and noticed that there was a definite lack of people on the crime/court drama wearing jeans (or t-shirts for that matter). This caused me to - at the last minute - reconsider my "jury duty outfit" (which was, in case you haven't guessed, a t-shirt and jeans). So, long story short, I decided to dress up. Well, dress up a little bit, at least. I wasn't going to the prom, after all.

I was going for "working casual" (wwhatever that means...!).

Anyway, it was all apparently for not. I saw a lot of people in jeans and t-shirts seated in the jury holding pen. They looked really comfortable. Damn.

So, it was around the time that I was attempting to put my belt back through the belt loops on my too-big-but-cute-pants that I suddenly realized I had left both my jury summons and my cell phone in the car (that I had finally parked in a garage two and a half blocks away from the Municipal Court, by the way). This, of course, meant that I had NO idea where to go (since the jury room number was printed on the stupid letter).

So, I did what any normal person would do: I started wondering mindlessly around the building. I know you think this is stupid, but there is SO much method in this particular madness. Case in point: there are tiny, post-it sized notes posted randomly placed around the courthouse. If you find a pink one and follow it to another pink one - you will eventually be lead to the jury holding pen. I thought of it like "going on a treasure hunt. 'X' marks the spot". It was almost fun (in a not-so-much-fun kind of way).

Anyway, I walked into the jury waiting room and checked in with the officer at the table (who, of course, asked for my jury summons that I didn't have). This took awhile, because he - for reasons unknown to me - kept thinking that my name was Karen (which it is not). However, it didn't seem to matter how many times I told him my name wasn't "Karen", because he just kept scanning the list looking for a "Karen" anyway. This might have been comical if it wasn't so frustrating.

Once we worked that little problem out (and by that I really mean: "convinced him of my non-Karen status"), I turned to look for an empty chair (of which there were none). So, I finally began the process of...well...waiting standing up. Great. This was turning out to be a great day.

So, about half an hour goes by and then this official looking woman enters the room and swears us all in. I couldn't help but notice that the lady directly in front of me held up her left hand instead of her right. I kept looking around the room to see if anyone else noticed it, too (I don't think anyone did). It crossed my mind to point her out (because I was sure that raising the wrong hand was somehow analogous to crossing your fingers when you promise). However, before I could do this, the swearing in process was over. We were all instructed to put on our "official jury badges" and to make ourselves comfortable. The official looking woman told us that we would know by lunchtime whether or not our services would be required.

Then the official looking woman...just...left.

It was just me, the bailiff and about 80 strangers.

So, I sat down on the floor (remember that there were no extra chairs) and started to read my book. I was actually quite comfortable on the floor, but the bailiff was upset that I didn't have a chair (even though I wasn't). He (bless his heart) went down the hall and found an extra chair and brought it back for me. However, his efforts were in vein because by the time he got back eight jurors (that were late) finally showed up. Poor guy. He had to swear them in one at a time.

In case you were curious, though, I never did get the chair. However, the bailiff was such a sweet guy (in a grandfatherly kind of way) that I really - honestly - didn't mind. I figured that it was just one of those cases where "it's the thought that counts". Cliche, I know, but - hey - it's all good.

Anyway, continuing on, there was a TV set up in front of the room, and around 10:30 AM this lady decided to turn it on. Judge Judy was just coming on (lucky me). This was followed by another episode of Judge Judy at 11, and "The Texas Judge" at 11:30.

Just in case you don't know me, I hate reality court shows. But you know what I hate more than reality court shows?...I HATE watching court shows while I'm waiting to go into a courtroom!! Why - for the love of God - did we have to watch bad court TV? We were there for JURY DUTY!! JURY. DUTY. Wait an hour and you won't have to watch court TV because you'll be in the freakin' courtroom!

So, I kinda felt like I was going to lose it by the time "The Texas Judge" had finally gotten around to making his ruling. And, I mean I really almost lost it. Thank goodness that the official looking woman came back in and (God love her) turned off the TV.

"Good afternoon," the official looking woman announced (there was an audible moan from several potential jurors when she clicked off "The Texas Judge"). "I'm sure you are all wondering why nothing has happened yet. Well, we are still waiting to hear back from all of the courts, but - don't worry - it shouldn't be much longer.

In the mean time, I need to make everyone in this room aware of something very, very important. The letter that you received summoning you for jury duty here today is very hard to understand. We are currently in the process of rewriting it, and we are very sorry for the confusion. The draft of the letter that you all received had a very important piece of information left off by accident. There are actually FOUR reasons why a juror may be disqualified for service in the City of Dallas, but only THREE are printed on your jury summons.

You can also be disqualified from jury duty if you do NOT live permanently in the City of Dallas. This is very confusing to a lot of people, because on the jury summons it clearly states 'Dallas County' several times. Dallas County is much, much larger than the City of Dallas. However, because the letter says 'Dallas County' instead of 'The City of Dallas' we tend to have a lot of people show up for jury duty that are, in fact, ineligible to serve in the City of Dallas.

So, if you live in the Park Cities, for example, you are not qualified to sit on a jury in the City of Dallas. The Park Cities have their own separate municipalities. Therefore, if you live anywhere other than the City of Dallas, I must ask you to leave at this time".

I am not even kidding when I tell you that half of the freakin' room got up at this point and started to file out of the room. One lady in particular (she was wearing a large silver bracelet with huge turquoise beads on it) was absolutely livid that she had, "sat around for the better part of three hours for nothing". She marched up to the official looking woman and gave her a very, very stern talking to. From what I heard, the turquoise bracelet lady didn't mind doing her civic duty, but she felt misled that the official looking woman did not inform her of her disqualification from the start (say, uh, when she was...I don't know...SWEARING US IN)!

Quite frankly, I agreed with the turquoise bracelet lady. But, I didn't care enough to say anything (it was one of the very few times that I've actually been excited about having a Highland Park address on my drivers license). Plus, I was much more concerned about getting the heck out of there and enjoying the remainder of my day off.

The officer who had originally signed me in when I arrived (not to be confused with the sweet bailiff who...uh...almost brought me a chair) got to sign me out as well. He asked me if I needed an excuse for work, and I figured "hey, why not"?

So, yeah, he totally made my excuse out for "Karen". I didn't bother to correct him, though. I think I was secretly impressed with his consistency...

Thus concludes my jury duty experience. I know you are all impressed. I think that I'll stick with my original assertion that the City of Dallas is - at the very least - "special".

Awe-some.