Civil Obediency

I don’t have much of a life, but the one I do have is pretty consistent. Same routine in the mornings, same routine in the evenings. If I feel like doing something exciting, I get Dulce de Leche ice cream, ok? So imagine my surprise to find a jury summons in my mailbox the day after coming back from Spring Break.

After the “How the hell did they get my name??” panic, I thought, how bad can it be? I mean, I won’t be the only one there waiting. Unless it’s a sting operation for deadbeat tax dodgers and they confused me with the previous owner of my home phone number, who keeps getting calls here for debt consolidation. Hey, my life may be boring, but my imagination isn’t. Anyway, I filled out the card, placed it in my purse, looked up directions to the courthouse, picked out my outfit (couldn’t go in sweats), and went to bed.

Morning comes, and I AM READY!!! I get on the road forty-five minutes before I’m due at the courthouse. No problem, since it’s a straight shot from the highway. I exit, and read the map directions provided so helpfully by Mapquest™.

And by “helpfully”, I mean they LIED!!

I turn left, going under the overpass, and continue down the directed road, seeing pasture after pasture, until I come into a little hamlet with five antique stores and a gas station. I pull over, and call the courthouse, giving the receptionist in the District Office my precise location. So precise, that search-engine-with-a-numerical-name-and-that-shall-never-be-used could find me by satellite in nanoseconds. The young woman then tells me to continue heading north past that hamlet, and I should be near town. Fine…. I get back on the road, and see nothing but fields, and cement trucks, and a road sign directing me to a centrally located college waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay on the other side of the county.

At this point I am in a full blown panic and think the entire sheriff’s department is after me.

Logic gives panic a throat punch and I turn around, going back the way I came. By this time I am ten minutes late, with nary a hope of getting there in the next half hour. But since there are no lights in my rear view mirror, I just resign myself to being late, my goal being to get there in one piece. About 20 minutes past nine, I find the courthouse, which has no parking. Five minutes later, I find the parking garage, park the car, and race towards the first door I see at the courthouse.

Which is no longer an ingress. Neither are the FRONT DOORS of the courthouse. The only ingress I find is the side door. I scurry in, get my bag searched, set off the metal detector THREE TIMES (stupid underwire), and then manage to go upstairs to find about 200 people outside. EUREKA!! I HAVE FOUND….someplace. But according to my card this is where I’m supposed to be. A nice lady informs me they are in recess and are waiting to file back in, and points out the young woman to whom I am to give my card. Finally the jurors are called back in, and I give my card to the sheriff’s deputy, in lieu of the young woman, who left probably to find something more exciting to do. He then took the card to another young woman, who explained that I would be rescheduled, since everyone had already been sworn in.

Great….just great. All that angst, all that panic, all the tears of frustration, all the cussing at the traffic, for nothing.

Well, I thanked her and told her I looked forward to the next summons, and left, calling Hubby to let him know what had happened. He told me to come home, since they hadn’t gone out yet. But then sends a text that they are at the grocery store. So I call him to pick up shoulder roast, and he tells me he doesn’t see it, so I end up meeting him at the grocery store to show him the various cuts of beef available.

Which is fine, because it’s beer braised beef tonight. And yes, I have a big pot for that 😀