I just spent two long days with people that I will never see again.  They know me as juror #2474.

Lets go back to the beginning.  I ignored my summons.  I’ve never done this but all my friends are doing it.  So?  I don’t know one person who has done jury duty and they all keep telling me they throw the summons away.  I didn’t have the nerve (thank God, I’ll explain).  Then some weeks went by and a postcard from “them” arrived with a threat.  Apparently, I ignored my first summons (wt?) and in doing so, they can fine me $1500.  Fuck them. But now I’m scared so I follow the instructions on the postcard.  I register online and now I’m in the system and it just fucked everything up.  I have the week scheduled but at the time it seemed far away.  Suddenly at Thanksgiving weekend, I remembered and excused myself from a party to go home and watch the orientation video.  It’ s a series of several 10-minute videos, taking up an hour of your time with a questionnaire at the end of each boring video.  A prompt said to make sure we had the juror badge.  I hadn’t seen a juror badge so I searched for that original summons and opened it.  Sure enough, it was there so I was never going to be able to lie and tell them I didn’t get that first summons. (more…)