Jury Duty.

Do those two words make you as nervous as they do me, along with other sweat-inducing paired words like tax audit, root canal, and test results?

Whenever I receive a jury duty notice my reaction is more “accused felon fixing to be arrested,” than prospective juror being asked to fulfill her civic duty. Reading any document with the word “summons” in it will do that to you, I guess.

Fortunately, my initial nervousness turned into a solid commitment to participate in the judicial process for one very important reason.

Because I had to.  

In my county, jury duty kicks off with a phone call the night before. After 5:00 p.m. other citizens like me madly dial into the number we’ve been given to confirm we need to show up the next day. The line was busy when I called in, so I just kept redialing as though I was trying to win concert tickets to a sold-out Dua Lipa show. (Points for pop culture relevance?)   

When I finally got through, instead of coveted tickets my prize was confirmation I was needed to show up the next morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp. The jury trial was on. That meant I needed to put together a sharp outfit that looked like I was headed to work, and not a work-out, the latter being my go-to attire. Off I went to access my closet’s smart casual wardrobe offerings. It took seconds to make my selection from my current stock.   

The next morning I left with plenty of time to spare. Good thing because getting into the courthouse proved a bit trickier than I had anticipated. My immediate goal became finding and securing a parking space that wasn’t labeled, “County Employee Only,” “No Parking Between the Hours of 6:00 a.m. and midnight,” or “Not For You.”

At one point I procured what I thought was an extraordinary parking space. It was under a tree with lots of room on either side, and walking distance to the courthouse, “thought” being the operative word.

It was only when I activated my door lock, hearing the satisfying, “Beep! Beep” that I happened to glance over and notice some writing on the cement block to which I had nicely lined up my front bumper. As I sashayed on over to take a closer look I noticed “Jury Commissioner” emblazoned on the marker. Uh-oh. I’d have to give myself quite a promotion to make that work, so I moved my car. Immediately. 

Because I had to.

As I approached the courthouse I was faced with a dishearteningly long line, heralding the vigorous use of a metal detector, x-ray machine, and a manual search of all bags. Usually, I don’t even wait in line for things I want, let alone jury duty, but I waited.

Because I had to. 

As the earth spun on its axis one more entire revolution I stood there. As luck would have it, I was sandwiched between a woman who had stopped by just to let everyone know she wasn’t able to perform her civic duty because she was sick with an extremely contagious case of something-or-other and a gentleman who was just darned excited to be there, even though his digestive problems usually kept him from such outings. This provided me with other things to think about than long lines.

While the length of my wait created reasonable doubt I would ever cross the courthouse threshold, eventually I did. The woman who checked me in even pronounced my name correctly, so things were looking up.

As I settled in for the wait with my new book I’d purchased just for this occasion, my contentment was short-lived. This is because I found myself re-reading multiple pages due to the clerk calling out new potential juror names at regular intervals.

(That’s when I realized this situation was just begging to be turned into a humor column, so I grabbed my handy-dandy purse notebook and got busy.)

In no time at all—about two hours if you enjoy specifics—we were released for a twenty-minute break. That’s when I scored a rich, frothy latté, the only problem being it took me nineteen minutes to get it. When I skidded into the courtroom the bailiff took one look at my cup of joe, shook his head “no,” and that’s when I gulped down the lava-like liquid in seconds, destroying numerous tastebuds in the process.

Because I had to. 

It was the afternoon, and we were now fully in the throes of jury selection. The mostly washed masses sat attentively as the judge attempted to determine who was best suited for the juror job. This commenced with what would turn out to be the most painful question and answer sequence I had ever witnessed since my father quizzed my first date about his intentions.

This segment might have gone quicker, if not for the judge’s contentious question he asked of a woman who was clearly in possession of a philosophy degree:  “Do you feel you can be a fair and impartial juror?”

Hello, and break out the bedrolls. A seemingly simple query isn’t so simple when broken down and parsed out by a deep thinker with a flair for sentence parsing. This was one complex little ask from her perspective, and I was forced to live that perspective for a good 10 minutes.

Because I had to.

Finally, the judge put all of us out of our misery when he told her it probably would be best if she took a pass on this particular proceeding. When she was dismissed I heard a collective sigh of relief throughout the courtroom as the air began circulating again.

The proceedings proceeded. One juror after another was excused with a few exceptions.

The real estate lady who everybody in town knew and respected was asked to step down—and out—of the jury box. The zealous older man with whom I had shared line time got to stay. The woman who proudly proclaimed her marriage to the sheriff barely got the chance to put her purse down when she was excused. 

As the process dragged on, I began to think 12 jurors really were too many. Couldn’t we be just as efficient with eight?

Finally, the last seat sat vacant. We all sat stock still. Breathing became labored and perhaps even briefly non-existent. One of us would have to fill that seat and it felt as though it was the electric chair, rather than an opportunity for public service.

I heard a name called. Not a female name. So, not me. It was a male name. Or as I like to think of it, it was my new, very favorite name. No one objected to him, the way he dressed, what he had for breakfast, or his career choice.

I stepped out into the sunshine a free woman. Unlike high school basketball, I was happy not to be chosen. As I made my way out of the courtroom, I expressed my exhilaration by doing the touchdown dance in front of the bailiff.

Because I wanted to.

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