Pauly Shore

I am thankful for not having to serve jury duty for at least another year. It has been my opinion that part of the fault for the country's current financial problems is due to how inefficiently our government uses funds. Today did nothing but support that opinion. Here are a few observations from my time served.

We were told to arrive at the court by 7:45 a.m. I don't know why, because we didn't even start anything until after 9. Maybe they were factoring in the 5 block walk from the parking structure to the court, the time spent going through the metal detector (Do they ask to see my belt buckle just to get a glimpse at my abs?), the wait and then dash for the elevator that only can be summarized with this video,

and the large number of media members there that day. I'm going to assume that they didn't factor all of that in, but it just made up for their inefficiency.

At around 9 our administrators got on the microphone and started to give us orientation. The lady stopped to introduce us to some sort of commissioner. After introducing her, there was a pause and a limited number of claps. I don't know why anyone would be expected to clap. If I really was a fan of the commissioner, I would probably went somewhere to hear her speak. However, since I had no idea who she was and didn't like being told to show up for jury duty without getting paid, I found no reason to clap for someone who is just taking up more of my day by blabbering about jury duty. No claps for you! After Commissioner got done with her nonsense the administrator started talking again. I didn't pay much attention, but I did notice the mention of how clean the bathrooms were in our jury room. I ended up visiting the "clean" bathrooms. For being in a place where people are professional judges, you would think there would be a better judgement of what clean is. After all the nonsense talk we were instructed to put our paperwork in boxes according to how many days our employers would pay for jury duty. There were over 250 of us and the zero days box was overflowing. Of course, they don't allow financial hardship to be a sufficient excuse from duty anymore. So, a bunch of us were unpleasantly being forced against our will to be a part of this system without being paid. However, if we were called to a jury we would begin getting our $15 per day. That reminded me of the movie Jury Duty starring Pauly Shore. He thought that was a pretty sweet deal. And another thing about the paperwork. It asks for us to list an emergency contact. We are in a courthouse filled with armed police. We go through security to get in and they still need to know who to contact? It sure made me feel safe.

At 10 a.m. the first group of potential jurors were called for a case that would last for no less than 90 days. 90 DAYS! They said that the computer had randomly taken out the jurors who would not be paid for that much time. I realized that they didn't understand the concept of randomness. There were two more groups called before 11:30. One for 40 days and one for 16 days. My name didn't "randomly" show up on either of those lists. At 11:30 they told us to go to lunch and come back by 1:30. That's right. A 2 hour lunch break. I have never worked any where with a 2 hour lunch break, but apparently the government does. Lunch was the only good part of my day. They played a DVD highlighting the local places to eat and I noticed that they mentioned Philippe's. I remember seeing them featured on an episode of Man vs. Food. Philippes's is known for their french dipped sandwiches and hot mustard. I decided to give it a try. After getting directions from Jed, I ordered the beef sandwich and it was pretty decent. I added some mustard too it and it became awesome. The first bite with the mustard was like getting punched in the face. It cleared my sinuses up and felt like I had a fire in my mouth. It was a good thing though. Like getting punched in the mouth if you had crooked teeth. It might hurt at first, but it probably helped straighten some of the teeth in the long run. I liked it so much that I bought a jar to take home to Sara. She was not a fan of it. So, if you are ever at our place and want to try some you are welcome to. After lunch I headed back to the courthouse only to sit there until 4 p.m. At which time they claimed to be letting us out early. My clock was telling me that I had already been there for over 8 hours. Then I figured that at our pay rate, overtime wasn't a big deal for them. I can't think of another time in my life when I felt like my time had been so wasted.

With all of my free time, I began looking around and made some various observations. There was a person wearing a mask. I can never tell if these people do that for fear of catching something or for not wanting to give something to someone else. In any case, I stay the heck away from them. That was the method of many other people. Mask Man had plenty of personal space. That can't be said for the rest of us. There were not enough seats for everyone, and if you did get a seat you weren't guaranteed great neighbors. My neighbor at numerous points throughout my delightful experience thought it would be fine to take his shoes off. I also got to enjoy overhearing numerous cell phone conversations. There was a group in front of me who spent the majority of the time talking. At one point one of them started complaining about their time spent living in Utah with the Mormons. I made sure to let him know that us California Mormons aren't like the Utarded ones. That led to an hour-long group discussion which included my shoeless neighbor declaring that he was a "former Jack Mormon".

So, for just over 8 hours they had over 200 people sit around to do nothing. They called only 3 groups that day and forced a lot of people to be there while losing pay from their current jobs. I think I have mentioned my jury duty idea before, but why not figure out who is watching Judge Judy in the middle of the day and call them to be a juror. They don't have anything better to do, and they obviously are interested in that type of thing. And, I understand that criminals aren't always the smartest people. And I know that they are entitled to be tried in front of a jury of their peers. But, how idiotic could these criminals possibly be? Everywhere I looked there was some kind of idiot. I started to question why I ended up in this group. I don't know what I did to be punished like I was, but it was not something I want to do again. So, I am thankful that I don't have to do jury duty for at least another year.