Called To Serve

I've been called to serve our country. Yup, jury duty. Again. It's only my second time, but I have a 100% record of being chosen so far. Last time it was for a public intoxication case. The state had video, witnesses, voice recordings, breath test analysis, etc. Seems pretty cut and dried, but there are those that live for this sort of thing, something where they can make a difference, where they've got a locked room of people who have to listen to them. Add some fire and gnashing of teeth, you've got my vision of hell. My problem is that I will not talk over people, and that usually puts me in the minority. That doesn't mean that I'm easily persuaded, I'm pretty stubborn, but I do listen to reason. When I can find it. There were two women on the jury last time that, for whatever reason, did not want to go home. They wondered if perhaps he was on medication that could give a false positive on the breath analysis. I figured if he'd been on meds, his attorney (which wasn't court appointed, and yeah, that'd made a difference to me) would have mentioned it. But they wanted to know, and we waited for two hours to find out that if it wasn't introduced at trial, it couldn't be considered. Where had I heard that before? Oh yeah, from the other 10 jurors. But, this was just one of the many ways they found to keep their 10 new best buddies locked in a room with them for 6 hours. You know you have problems when someone on the jury is wondering what they'll serve us for lunch at 9 a.m., or wondering where they would put us up at if it went overnight. What?? If I'm told I'd have to share a room overnight with a stranger you might as well lock me up now, because I'm not going. Okay, granted, there are a few strangers I might be tempted to get to know better, but I'm not going there right now. Or there either, and especially not there !
So, tomorrow I'll be fighting rush hour traffic, to sit with a hundred or so of our nations finest (a girl can dream) just waiting for their chance to serve their country. I'm hoping that, if chosen, I'll be in a crowd of 12 that have an actual life to get home to, who listen well and if there is a control freak in the midst, please limit it to one. I just need to pack my ipod, a good book and a vicodin or two. Nope, no need to worry about me. :)