Well, the Gods of Justice smiled on me yesterday and let me out of jury duty. After last year’s 2 ½ week fiasco, I wasn’t quite ready to be a civil servant again. Thankfully Dekalb County, unlike other counties in metro Atlanta, has a “One Day or One Trial” policy. So if you don’t get called for jury duty the day you report, you don’t have to come back the rest of the week.
Anyway, while we were waiting to be called, they actually had 2 judges give a little spiel about jury duty and the importance of it. I hate it when they’re captivating speakers and actually personable and make you feel like you want to serve on a trial. The second judge who spoke to us was an elderly Asian judge. It’s still disconcerting to hear an Asian with a southern accent, especially since he still had a somewhat broken English accent too. His speech was very somber when it came to talking about traffic offenses. I’m guessing that the amount of traffic-related fatality cases that he deals with (DUI, reckless driving, driving while talking on the cellphone…) was really starting to get to him because he went on a side rant and was pleading with the crowd to slow down and pay attention while driving.
An amusing side note was when one of the clerks told the room that if we went to the cafeteria to please tell the cashier what you had on your tray and also what denomination of bill you were giving her. I’m all for giving the handicapped gainful employment, but perhaps the position of cashier should be given to someone who is not BLIND?!?!?!
A few hours pass by and my name isn’t called for any of the groups they’ve called for cases. Out of 300+ who were initially in that room, there were maybe 30 of us left. The clerk read about half our names, mine included, and then said that our case was settled and we were free to go. HELL YEAH!! I really didn’t feel sorry for the remainder of the people who were left, including the group of 60 or so who were told to return at 12:30.
By the way, send your gum through the x-ray machine along with your metal-based stuff. I triggered the alarm with my potentially terrorist package of Trident Splash Peppermint Vanilla. It must have the same chemical composition of plastic explosive or something. Of course, I was half-expecting the detector to still go off due to the fact that I was wearing a Metallica t-shirt. You would have thought all the “metal” emanating from my demonic shirt would have set off some kind of alarm. Alas, the stench of the “Load” and “Re-Load” albums has rendered their metal powers almost useless.
On the plus side, I got a lot of extra reading done in those few hours.