So, for those of you who have never had the privilege and honor to be called to jury duty, let me spin a tale for you of my last week’s adventure.

Now, I will say this. I know plenty of people who have spent days, count ’em, days, sitting and waiting for nothing to happen. My lovely bride is one of them. She spent 2 days in 2005 sitting in a wonderfully 1960’s appointed pew waiting for her name never to be called.

But that’s not me.

I show up Tuesday morning at 8:00AM, ready to go through security. I put my bags and coat on the conveyor, put change and keys in the bucket, and the lady (count ’em, 1) tells me to walk through the metal detector. It does not beep. I don’t even know if it was turned on. She doesn’t actually LOOK at my bags under the x-rays, as the conveyor is actually turning at about 50mph. I grab my crap and rush out of the way of the next person, who is being shoved through security as quickly as I.

Up to the 4th floor, check in and sit down. Rest of the “jurors” are supposed to roll in by 8:30 – they’re still checking people in at 10. You, supposedly, can use internet access through their wireless connection, but I think it’s powered by a mouse on a wheel, because I can barely get through downloading one message per hour when I just give up on email for the morning.

Good thing, because remember how I said some people never get called? That’s not my fate.

45 of us are called for a jury. We go upstairs and are greeted by about 10 sheriff’s deputies? We feel like WE’VE done something wrong. We did. We answered the summons.

Murder trial – 4-5 weeks. They have to fill 2 spots on a jury. No way I’ll get called, they’ll fill that easy. Wrong. Up to talk to the judge – looks friendly from afar but kind of like a robot in the Hall of Presidents up close. Scared, I can barely get the words “freelance artist” out before they dismiss my thankful ass… right back down into the jury pool.

Lunch. Another group is called… thankfully, I’m not in it. But I recognize several names. They start filtering in around 2, some very relieved. Third group is called – 50 jurors for a criminal trial. They can’t seem to locate juror number 34. Where is he? Oh, well, I’ll just called juror 51 to take his place. Guess who is juror 51.

I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it any more.

I actually walk to the jury room with a man that notes he was called all three times. Some people weren’t called at all. And 1 guy, I recognize, was called my two times. He can’t speak English at all, so he shouldn’t be there. Of course, he can’t tell people that, because (a) he can’t understand English, therefore can’t understand the rules and (b) can’t tell them that because… well you get the picture.

We sit in a vacant room for a while. A deputy tells us the courtroom we were supposed to go to was occupied, so we had to wait. Of course, we are sitting in a courtroom currently. I decide not to mention that.

20 minutes, the deputy comes back. The trial we were called for was settled. Yeeha! Of course, that just means we go back into the jury pool. But we are dismissed an hour later. And I didn’t have to come back the next day. Have you ever seen a happy dance? I did one.

So one day. Just one. I was more nervous than a whore in church the night before. It wasn’t so much the jury duty, but the idea that I was being forced to be somewhere. When you work for yourself, someone else suddenly telling you to be somewhere is traumatic. Plus, you can’t get any work done. But that’s not it, either… whether I had work to do or not, I want to be in charge of the schedule. Period.

Plus, Rian was in Jamaica looking at boobs. Not so much in the jury room.