Shadow Puppet Storyteller

What did I write during jury duty

I've had the luck of always having my calls to jury service be 8 hour reading and writing fests interrupted only by a lunch period (and, once by a bomb scare, in addition). Some might call this good, some bad. I expect the next year I get called the odds are likely to break this peculiar stretch. I think of myself as an average citizen, who's nicely versed in American judicial process, history, and the nit-picky stuff like handling the flag properly. (Maybe that's not so average). But I'm a wise user of my time, usually. My need to learn about things at least keeps me busy reading. What my hands are doing most of the time is an arrangement between me and Satan exclusively (That's a joke, son. Old, cliched and rewrittten, but, in Truth, a joke.) I could have wiled-away my hours knitting, but knitting needles are now considered too hazardous to be entrusted to your average citizen. I suppose that sharpened pencil at the bottom of my bag doesn't count as a terrorist's tool. Hmmm, I wonder if its threat level would've gone up if I'd had two? Or would I have had to been carrying two and a ball of Cashmere? I was warned on the phone. I didn't even bring a pointy carrot stick in my lunch.

The answer to my opening question - What did I write during jury duty? Not much. Mostly, I listed out my fixed and varible expenses for the month. I do this pretty consistantly, (every month), particularly when there's no money left in my account and the pay hasn't changed. I don't know why I can't be as consistant at keeping every day's expenditures documented. After admitting there's a debt problem, that's supposed to be the first step to wrangling a solution. Perhaps related to this, I began listing out the areas for improvement in the department I work in, while at the same time, listing my own strengths and weaknesses for any other employer that will take me. Planning the strategy for negotiating the salary I'm worth along the way.

Finally, disgusted with my own egotism, I read the entire California section of the paper. Trying to sneak a look over the shoulder of the bus passenger in front of me that morning only gave me a taste of the headlines. Steve Lopez was brilliant yesterday. One reason I'd hate to not be affiliated with the Times anymore, but then, jumping ship could allow me to afford buying the paper. It's not that the per paper cost or even a subscription are unreasonably high, I just want it at my leisure, rather than obsessing over my variable expenses.

I kept up my strength by taking a walk up from the courthouse, enjoying a bowl of Tortilla Soup at the Courtyard Cafe within the compound containing the new Cathedral for Our Lady of City of the Angels. I found it to be a very modern, museum-quality beauty. The huge bronze doors that I exited, when I determined it was time to return to work at hand, were a bit frightening to me. Too many movies. They seemed apocalyptic. I could only imagine them being bolted closed to keep parishoners in and the unsavory out. I know that's not the intent; everything else about the entire place was very welcoming and inclusive. Like I said, too much stupid Hollywood in my psyche.

After lunch, I did even less. I read the September issue of Working Mother cover to cover. I definitely think the slant is East Coast and fast-track career. One reader sent in a letter to the editor that susinctly said, I'm a single working mother raising 4 kids, and I don't think your articles are very helpful to people that are without the financial resources to just buy their way out of a situation. That's the truth, Sister! I don't think there's a magazine out there that does. From someone who gets magazine reading done in the doctor's waiting room, the budget haircut shop's lobby, the jury assembly room or the public library, I don't fit their criteria either. We don't subscribe because that's a luxury. Subscribers and casual readers are the advertising targets (actually, stressed out, guilty-feeling wives and mothers are the true bull's eye).

After all this deep thought, my service is over for the day. I am released. What to do now?