Essays - Jury Duty

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After a week or so in Europe this past April of 2008, I finally got up the nerve to check my mailbox. As a rule, I hate checking snail mail because it's just so boooooring - no one ever writes a nice letter or card anymore. So after a few days of mail procrastination, amongst all the bills, I found a big red Jury Duty summons - for the Very Next Day - ulp. I got it deferred, naturally, but it got me thinking. Everyone gets these. I think they could give a tad more than 10 days’ notice for folks who travel a lot. One more day and I would have been in some sort of major horrible trouble, likely as not.

So this July, I made a new foray down to the courthouses, expecting some sort of exciting Law & Order-type experience. I was disappointed to pass the Jack McCoy building and discover that it was not the address on my ballot. Somehow I had entertained all these visions of myself walking down those stairs in some sort of spiffy suit, hounded by reporters, repeating "no comment" in manner of Angie Harmon or someone equally glamourous.

Well, as anyone could have told me, the whole process is pretty femur-crushingly boring, and I ended up spending 2 days in a fluorescent lit, morgue-cold room with a silent cross-section of New York society. On the second day; after finishing my book, watching a zillion episodes of CSI wrapped up in 3 scarves, and in the middle of my 8th magazine, I surfaced a bit, and noticed that at least half of the folks there had no reading material, no iPod, no computer, were aimlessly looking around, and obviously had been doing nothing else the entire time.

I have always been mystified by these folks when I see them on planes or in airports - but I can't fathom anyone being quite as clueless as I about Jury Duty. Everyone apparently knows that it's a 'sit and wait' situation, and even in my wildest TV show inspired imaginings, I figured there might be some down time, and came ultra prepared with an activity bag full of fun. Why would they show up with nothing, I wondered. Perhaps they were meditating, or had cataracts (possible for a few), did not own a computer or iPod, or maybe were illiterate (but then how would they have read the summons?), or, possibly, I finally had to accept, some folks like to do absolutely nothing but sit around and stare, at nothing. This is about as comprehensible to me as covering oneself in Goober and jumping up and down naked on a harpsichord shouting nonsense.

I must say, though, that we were treated pretty nicely - much better than my other two experiences downtown. A little hint here to anyone who has to do NYC Jury Duty, and can’t take the time to do it - they never check ID! I was astonished. There is an Xray, but not once did I need to pull out my passport. So, in theory, one could just send one’s grandma, if one is busy. I wonder if anyone has ever pulled that off. Also, they have a 13th floor, but not a 12th. Could it be that someone miscounted the popular floor superstition? I have never seen that before, and I meant to ask about it, but was so in haste to take advantage of my newfound jury duty-free life for the next 5 years, and get a hot dog, that I forgot to bother.

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