Yep That's Me: A Patriot At Heart

One day I was on the phone with one of my business partners and he mentioned that he'd received the second most feared piece of mail in existence. The "you've been snagged for jury duty letter." The first most feared of course is the "you're being audited" letter by the IRS. I've received both and trust me, the jury duty letter is like a Publishers Clearing House envelope in comparison.

Anyway, as we talked about the date he was to report, I said that it had been a verrry loong time since I had been called to serve. Oh yeah, two days later there it was in the mailbox.

Monday was the day. A dreary morning. Knowing I will be going through security screening, I have emptied out my large purse of possible items that would bar me from entering and making it necessary to go back to my car. As I approach the courthouse I notice a line formed at the door. Doors open at eight, five minutes of standing in the rain. Perfect.

The room where you would normally report and hang out all day while waiting to get called for a trial, was now being used by the Probation Department. Their entire building had been destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, so this large, fairly comfortable room was no longer available. Instead we were directed to an actual courtroom. Small. With freakin' church pews to sit on. Hard freakin' church pews to sit on. The kind of church pews I hadn't sat on since I stopped going to church when I was twelve... and we all know that was a verrry loong time ago. And no outlets. You saw it in everyone's eyes as we entered, everyone scanning the walls to see where we could recharge our phones. Oh no, one outlet and the coffee makers were plugged into that. Immediately I went to Plan B, I would grab a sandwich in the cafeteria for lunch and take it out to the parking lot so I could charge the phone in the car.

Now the room had wi-fi, but a weak signal. My phone worked faster than my laptop. So much for that. I brought some reading material, two books I never seem to have the time to finish. The first, Stephen King's non-fiction exercise On Writing, and the second is my online bud Lance Burson's The Ballad of Helene Troy, a little sex, drugs and rock & roll novella... perfect for a courtroom setting.

So I read, I sat, I watched the people. I have to say, I was expecting a motlier crew. Most of the potential jurors weren't too shabby, seedy or even interesting. Except the guy sitting in the pew in front of me. He was large and burly. Maybe 6' 2", 250 lbs. Stubble beard, blonde with gray mixed in, jeans and bright orange t-shirt with Key West on the back. But the one thing I just could not stop looking at was his head. Buzz cut around his balding center, with the exception of one patch of hair in the middle back of his head. Not at the nape, in the middle he had this thin, straggly pony tail of at least 10".  I kept staring at it, seriously, I just couldn't stop. I had to take a picture.

And sadly, that was the most interesting part of the day. I was not called for a trial, that was most definitely a good thing. I came home with a headache, a backache and a sore ass. Along with a get out of jury duty for three years paper.

Call me a patriot if you will, just don't call me back for jury duty any time soon.