You call this JUSTICE?
I recently received a jury summons and like all good little citizens, I stupidly showed up for jury duty, all squeaky clean, looking more respectable than I do even for my job. Upon arriving at the courthouse, along with 50 or so of my fellow citizens, we were instantly treated like cattle and sent to a large room to be checked in. Right after that the pace of things positively went into warp mode as we were instructed to take a seat and prepare ourselves for the Huge Importance of Jury Duty. First, we learned we would be paid, IN CASH, a whopping $6.00 (yes, SIX DOLLARS, count ‘em) for the entire day!! Next we were given a 20-minute break. Then we sat around in excruciating boredom for approximately two hours before we were sent to lunch. Upon return from lunch, three jury panels were selected. I was not on any of them. I sat around for another hour contemplating the benefits of sitting around doing nothing for $6.00 versus contributing to the nation’s economy by being at the job I am paid to do and thus actually contributing something to society. Eventually, I was the final person to be empanelled on the final jury panel. I was immediately informed that it was highly unlikely that I or the person immediately preceding me would be chosen. Neither the prosecution nor the defense bothered asking either of us any questions. Amazingly, we were NOT chosen for the jury panel. We were, instead, returned to the waiting room where we discovered, much to our joy, that we had also not been struck by either side, and thus, we were to be re-pooled. YAYYY!! This led to another exciting 90 minutes of complaining to one another, bitching at the clerk, and contemplating mugging a cop in order to steal his gun and fire shots into the ceiling just to liven things up. We decided first that were we to be finally chosen for a jury, then no matter what we would find the defendant guilty. After all it was their fault that we had to be there! Then we decided that it was the system that was at fault so we would find the defendant innocent even if he/she had been caught driving a stolen vehicle at three times the speed limit while swigging from a bottle of MD 20/20 and mooning the pursuing cops. We were given another break. A break from WHAT, we wondered? By the time a mutiny was organized and ready to go, they finally decided at 4:00pm that they may as well release us.
Somehow, I have the sneaky feeling that the next time I receive a jury summons in the mail, the post office is going to mysteriously lose the summons and, being oblivious, I shall not know to show up.