With Stern Judicial Frame of Mind

HI.  Sorry about this fucked up color shit.  

Something happened.

Deal.

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 25, Verse 8

"Don't be hot-headed and rush to court!"

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

Are you fucking kidding me?

I'd rather get a teddy bear stuffed with Ricin.  But, alas, no such luck for me.  It's Jury Duty.

They tried this on me once before.  Back before I had a smart phone that I dutifully put appointments and important things in, my life was a haphazard, disorganized mess of scraps of paper in my trouser pockets or in my glove box or on my bureau.  When we were getting ready to dump my wife's PT Cruiser in favor of my Volvo S-40, I was cleaning out the door pockets and found a piece of paper that looked strangely similar to the paper pictured above.  My heart dropped immediately to my bowels and floated in a pool of half-digested lunchmeat.  I stared at it, hoping it would go away, like a neighbor I don't want to talk to-- but that never works.  Things and people don't just go away because you stare at them.  

I would know.  Can you imagine just how many people have stared at me, hoping I would go away?  And fuck if I'm not still here.

So, I grabbed the juror notice and the date I was due to report was three months prior to the date I had the paper in my hand.  I immediately expected a Sheriff's Department van to pull up in back of the PT Cruiser and have a cadre of deputy dawgs cuff me an' stuff me.  Certain that there was a warrant out for my arrest, I shakily called the number on the paper and rambled some crazy mess of excuses for why I didn't show.  The clerk on the phone was actually pretty nice about it.  She said I was "fine" which, I guess, meant that I wasn't in contempt of court and didn't owe a $1,000 fine and that the police weren't going to rappel through my bedroom window that night and whisk me away to Night Court to face that annoying magician judge.  

This time, my Jury Duty notice is pinned proudly to the kitchen cork board and the reminders are in my Outlook calendar at work and my iPhone.  I was going to have September 24th tattooed to my forehead, but I didn't want everyone thinking I was publicly raising awareness of the birth date of my two favorite people: the Ayatollah Khomeini and Jim Henson.  

While the idea of earning roughly the daily wage of a Chinese factory worker, while doing none of the actual arduous physical labor, is oddly appealing to me on some twisted level, I'm not altogether excited about the prospect of serving on a jury.  I guess lots of people feel this way, but for different reasons.  They don't want to miss work, they "don't have time for that", it's boring and annoying and you can't talk about what you're doing, etc.  

Me?

I just don't fucking like people.  

And, when you're on a jury, I expect, you have to deal with people.

LOTS of people.

I mean, you're all crammed the fuck up in that jury box with at least eleven of them.  The attorneys.  And the bailiffs.  And the stenographer.  And the goddamn courtroom frustrated Rembrandt with her little oil pastels and artsy glasses.  And there's the suspect, looking like a shithead.  And the victim, looking all victimy as hell.  And the families.  And the orphans.  And the vendors selling T-shirts and the cops and Jem, Scout, and Cousin Dill up in the balcony and Sam Watterston with his fucking eyebrows and 

For these kind words accept my thanks, I pray. 

A Breach of Promise we’ve to try to-day. 

But firstly, if the time you’ll not begrudge, 

I’ll tell you how I came to be a Judge.

It's never like it is in the movies.  Or on TV.  Or in the Victorian operetta. 

It's middle-aged women farting in the sequestration room and cold sandwiches on stale bread and people wanting to get home before "Jeopardy!" and if justice was ever served at an American court proceeding I'm sure it was by complete accident.  

Please.  Don't put me in a room with those people.  Whoever they are.  Women.  Men.  White, black, plaid, I don't give a fuck.  I'll tell them my daddy's daddy's daddy was a cop.  I'll tell them I collect Jim Crow postage stamps.  I'll pee my pants.  I'll pee the guy next to me's pants.  I'll come on the 24th wearing a Hitler mustache and no pants.  I'll wear a bra, on the outside of my shirt.  I'll faint.  I'll shoot fake blood out of my eyeballs.  No-- real blood.  I'll steal the gavel.  I'll call myself "H. Rap Brown" and I'll do the black power fist thing when the judge walks in.  

Please.  I'm scared.  I'm too dumb to decide someone else's fate.  I can't even decide my own.