I get to spend today as the guest of Miami-Dade County waiting to be called up for jury duty. I’m going to take my laptop and Kindle so I am not stuck in the room with nothing to do but watch Sandra Bullock movies.
I do not mind doing it… except for the Sandra Bullock part. (It’s not her; I’m sure she’s a fine actor and given the choice, I’d rather watch her than Adam Sandler. But how many times can you sit through “The Blind Side”?) I think being called up is a part of the deal of being a citizen, and I’m happy to do it. They let us bring books, food, and computers into the waiting room, they give us free parking, and for people who have to take off from work, they require my employer to pay me while I’m sitting reading, writing, or watching.
This is my third time being called up. I have yet to make it to actually sit on a jury.
I had local jury duty in Sept. and they sent me home at noon and that was it. I got $6 for driving down there and sitting.
When we lived in a county with a court that dealt primarily with farmer-to-farmer fencing disputes and the occasional domestic violence case, we found that as drugs permeated the tiny towns in northwest Ohio just off the interstate highway, there were more cases brought before the judge that involved dealing rather than using. Your father was called to duty and to his surprise was put on a jury that made him chairman. The case was drug dealing out of a local service station not far from our house and the dealer wasn’t a tattooed guy from Detroit, but an elderly gent with a pot belly and thinning hair who was supplementing his retirement allotment. Of course he got the maximum. And your father came away from that experience with wry amusement. Only in Perrysburg . . . .