Jury Duty

I had jury duty yesterday. This involves me driving downtown in the early morning rush hour traffic. I don't do rush hour traffic anymore. Rush hour, on the way to my school, involves making sure I don't hit a cow.

So I get instructions from Sparky. He cannot emphasize enough that I should be VERY CAREFUL LEST I DIE trying to exit onto Congress Street. Sufficiently scared and forewarned, I am slightly hesitant as I approach the big green sign that tell me Congress St. is coming up in 1 mile. I try to merge right but holy smokes, the traffic coming ONTO I-10 is incredible. However, it's also fairly slow so I figure I will be good, put on my right turn signal, and politely merge. My first mistake was using a turn signal. My second mistake was being polite.

This freakin' middle aged woman in her little SUV would NOT let me in. So the Philly in me, I MEAN MY INSTINCTS kick in and I think to myself I will just put the nose of my car right in front of her car. Works every time! But then I suddenly had Sparky sitting on my shoulder, whispering to be careful. I backed off. I freakin' backed off! ME!!! I again tried to nicely wave to her to show her I needed to be there. SHE DIDN'T FREAKIN' LET ME IN! Now I am ready to give her another kind of wave with my hand but I am trying SUPER HARD to get over now cause I less than a 1/4 mile until the exit. THE UGLY LADY finally goes fast enough that I can get in behind her. I BEEPED. MAN DID I BEEP! I may have said some things outloud in the privacy of my car too. And do you know what she did? SHE PULLED INTO THE OTHER LANE - THE LANE I HAD BEEN IN. She didn't even want to be in the lane I needed to be in. I thought my head was going to shoot right off, right there on I-10.

I MAY or may not have POINTED at her. I MAY or may not have said some slightly magical words. I MAY or may not have wished she runs out of gas in Casa Grande, without water, with a whole freakin gaggle (or whatever) of buzzards just waiting to eat her innards for a mid morning snack.

When I finally did get off the exit, I then had to find a certain street, which I found. But here's the thing: Am I the only person in the world to not have daily interaction with the law that I cannot easily identify or find the courthouse? WHY doesn't the courthouse have a sign. Maybe a sign that says: COURTHOUSE. Am I crazy? I pulled across the street, called Sparky on his cell phone and asked where the courthouse might be. After explaining where I was, he asked me to look at the building in front of my car. Sure enough, it was the courthouse.

I park and ONLY AS I AM APPROACHING the doors do I see these little tiny letters on the class door explaining it's the (name of someone I don't know) Courthouse. Gee, thanks! I could see that soooo clearly from the road!

You've gotten this far and you want to know if I was called up to serve. No. I got a number, I got to go upstairs, in an elevator with 60 other potential jurors. We walked in and the judge (HE LOOKED LIKE GOD - up there on high, far away, booming voice, stern look) and said the case had been moved but he wanted to tell us himself and he wanted to prove that there is actually a courtroom in the courthouse. Everyone chuckled that nervous laugh and we were dismissed. It was 10:00 am. I went RIGHT BACK TO WORK LIKE A DUTIFUL TEACHER. Ok, I actually went and got my eyebrows waxed, shopped, and had lunch. I kinda like jury duty!