Friday, September 27, 2013

jury duty

I am driving at a snail's pace behind a car with a bumper sticker that says "You can't be Catholic and believe in abortion." And you know what, that's not even true. I was in San Diego at a farmers' market and there was a group of young people handing out flyers stating they were Catholic and pro-choice. They were an intelligent-looking lot and they wanted me to stick around and discuss all that but I politely declined as I had a date with an Indian food vendor.

I can't be late this morning. It is my first day of jury duty and I'm already in trouble due to the school bus incident. I just figured this was another extension of my punishment for that offense but I had been fairly confident I would be excused from the whole business.

 
I had read an article in a beauty magazine that said women who have olive skin tones should wear green nail polish. I'd gotten my toes painted that very color and the polish was chipped and really quite ugly. I made a point of sitting in the front row where the attorneys could see my crappy green toes and then there was the fact that I had cut my own bangs the day before. "Never cut your hair when you've been drinking," my sister-in-law was fond of saying but after several beers my inhibitions were non-existent. I thought these two physical pieces of evidence would get me off the hook, here is a woman who clearly has impaired judgment issues, but this was not to be the case.

 
On the bright side I got to wear a cool badge but they wouldn't let me take it outside the courthouse but I could wear it as I walked around the building making jokes with all the security guys, yes, I am truly one of you. "Can I take notes?" I asked the bailiff who is actually now called a court attendant but bailiff is way cooler-sounding. She looked pleased that somebody on this jury was taking the whole thing seriously and she glanced disapprovingly over at the woman next to me who had Harley Davidson spelled out in pink sequins across her ample breasts. I was anticipating a regular yellow pad like the attorneys but instead was handed a smaller version of the same tablet. This will never be enough, I sadly thought to myself especially since half the paper was already gone. People were always asking to borrow my notes in college because my abilities in that category were never short of awesome.

The county was going to pay me $30 a day to sit around and take notes so I decided to stay. There's a few more things I need to say on this subject but that will be at a later date.

2 comments:

Arizaphale said...

I for one will be looking forward to them! I have been called for jury duty twice, once in Australia and once in the UK (the joys of being transnational). On the first instance I had to take my young sister to the airport for her return trip to the UK when she was in a bad way. I thought they would tell me to send her in a taxi but no, they let me off! In the UK, the call-up coincided with our school's OFSTED inspection. That was a no-brainer. Free again. So now I ma left wondering what jury duty would really be like?? I'll have to let you tell me. PS: I regularly have bad experiences with scissors and fringe, even whilst sober.

dawn marie giegerich said...

god girl, you drunk.