Yesterday…the mail came…now…I know…that isn’t a momentous occasion…and…there are days that I even forget to check mine…but…since it was my birthday…I thought…there might be a card in there…so I checked…
Nope…no card…but…there was a mysteriously official looking envelope…one that you have to read the directions to know which strip to tear off first…at first glance…I thought it might be a new look for my paystub…then…I saw the return address…Circuit Court…
Now…in my experience…that only means one thing…jury duty…
I wasn’t excited…it was my birthday…I was hoping for a surprise…I got one…just not what I wanted…it was jury duty…right in the middle of my summer vacation…I mean…couldn’t it have been during the school year…
I must admit…I whined…it wasn’t that I didn’t want to serve my community…well…okay…I didn’t really…but…that has more to do with the structure of sitting in a courtroom…with limited bathroom breaks…and an old bladder…than lack of civil mindedness…but…the main thing…it’s summer vacation…and…I’m selfish…I didn’t want to give them a week of my break…why didn’t they want me during the school year…I would have gone then…I wouldn’t have whined…well…not…as much…anyway…
Bertha…rolled her eyes…pointing out…that our penal system…allows every person…a trial by a jury of their peers…then…asks…do I really think any of my peers would be on trial…
You know…divorced…plump…middle aged…nurses…who prefer writing to bedpans…who no longer dye their hair…whose children are grown and gone…who keep a so-so house…enjoy cycling…and can’t quite stay in Twitter’s good graces…and…haven’t had a date…in…well…that’s irrelevant…overruled…and…who put up with an inner voice named…Bertha…
Well…she had a point…I haven’t seen a lot of those kooky characters running around lately…but…somehow…I know that the court’s sense of peers…and…hers…isn’t the same…recalling…years ago serving on a case of a farmer who was suing the highway department…
Before we could get into the…peer…debate…my theory being…it’s a small community…everybody knows everybody…and…if I don’t have strong ties on either side…then…I am a peer…but…I digress…
Anyway…about that time…I looked at the date…hmmm…the week that I am called for…coincides with the dates that I have agreed to work summer school…because…all the other school nurses…including the Judge’s wife…it is a small community…are going to a conference…I’d just worked that out with my supervisor…an hour before I got the notice…
Since…there’s no one else to work those days…and…since we have to have a nurse at the school for a student with healthcare needs…I’ll probably have to ask for a reschedule…preferably during the school year…just saying…
Jane
What?! The first week you’re out of school? Well, heck.
Peggy…it will actually be the third week…but…still…whine…whine…whine…