Shelby's Life and Whatnot

Happy Birthday Mom and Elvis!

Yesterday was both my mother's birthday and Elvis' birthday. Hooray!

I also have jury duty, where I am right now. I was originally scheduled for jury duty in September when we were in Alaska so I postponed it to today. And then completely forgot about it. Luckily I left the summons on the refrigerator and luckily I happened to be walking past it last night at about Midnight (thinking that I didn't have work the next day--I don't) and said, "Oh [expletive]! I have jury duty tomorrow!"

There are two ways to do jury duty around these parts. The first is you "serve" for a week and you call in every day to see if they want you to come in. The second--the one I got--is you show up for one day and if you don't get picked, you're done.

Luckily I'm at the Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana, which is only about 15 minutes from our home. Also luckily is that the prospective juror room is quite comfy. There are nice tables and comfy chairs, and most importantly--free wifi!

They called 600 of us today and then throughout the morning they've been announcing different assignments and calling people up. Right before lunch I looked around to a mostly empty room, and they announced that there shouldn't be any jurors left in the pool and if you were still sitting there, come to the little check-in window. Hmmmm. At that point I had felt lucky to not be chosen. Then I started wishing I were chosen just to make this trip worthwhile. But after that announcement--I feel like some kind of rejected loser. Even the courts don't want me! Also, I was nervous that I wouldn't get credit for the day. I went back up there and they were like, "Did you check in?" Yes--that's why I'm wearing this really lame-looking badge. They scanned my number again and told me to have a seat until after lunch. I do hope I don't get penalized for being "late" or something (even though I wasn't).