Son-of-a-Gun!

I thought I'd have an rare day off and to myself on Tuesday. I moved my clients to another day because I was scheduled for jury duty, with instructions to phone this evening to see if I and the group I was placed in was needed. I did not expect it would be. I made plans to write, relax, catch up, take Stella to the park, maybe even finish these damn "08 taxes that should have been done last January.
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But NO, I have jury duty. I will show up at a courthouse 25 miles away tomorrow morning at 8 AM and do my civic duty. If I am assigned to a case that goes more than one day, I will sulk. And please don't give me a serious case like murder two: I'm not in the mood.
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When my beloved daughter Jessica was just 18 years old, not a month out of high school, she was called for jury duty. She was indeed assigned to a murder 2 or was it manslaughter case: a young man with no prior record who was present when his friend pushed someone out of a moving van after snatching his wallet. Jessica came home crying her heart out because she did not know a guilty pleas would mean a mandatory five year sentence for being an accessory. She said the young man's mother was in the courtroom sobbing. She also said the names and addresses of all the jurors was leisurely left on one of the courtroom tables, and she did not sleep by herself for almost a year after that. She was only 18, too young for this experience.
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And then there's me. I've managed to wiggle out of two prior jury pools, but this time I have no good excuse. I could say I need to prune my garden. Write a chapter about true love gone bad. Exercise my dog. Pay bills. Catch up on my rest. I could say I need to replenish my soul. I could even say I think I have swine flu symptoms.
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Instead, I will walk into the county courthouse and try to utter not one complaint to my very expert complaining self. Tomorrow I'll be citizen kj instead. And if I get dismissed a half hour after I sign in: well, that would be just fine with me.