When Duty Calls

Argo Warrior Princess recently inquired about my serving on a jury experience. I was going to point her in the direction of this esteemed blog.....but, there was nothing to point her to, as for some unknown reason, I have yet to blog about this.

I STILL cannot believe I have not blogged about this awesome-gone-horrific experience; in fact, I would have bet money on it that I had written about it three for four times. Heaven knows I still need therapy over it.

For those of you who aren't in the know, it is true: I served on a jury many a year ago. Not only did I serve on the jury, I ended up being the foreman of the jury.

The friggin' foreman!

Are you sure I haven't blogged about this before? It seems so familiar....okay, okay--flash back to the 1990's, back when I had long hair and only one or two tattoos......

It all started when I got one of those little letters in the mail indicating that my name had been chosen for jury duty. Being the foolish, proud, civic-minded American that I was, I thought this was a WONDERFUL thing. I had always wanted to be called for jury duty and now it was my time. I was a-glow with jury fever, giddy with court room delight.

This is how naive I was: the night before my scheduled jury day, I was actually worried they might not need me. Horror! I called the phone number to check my status......I was still scheduled for jury duty. Music to my jury-virgin ears.

It never dawned on me that I might want to dress up for court. Actually, not much of anything dawned on me in relation to this. I just got up, slapped on some jean-shorts overalls, t-shirt and gym shoes (I kid you not), grabbed a book and headed to the court house.

Upon arrival, I was herded into a waiting area with the rest of my potential-juror-peeps. It was not a glamorous space--dirty, dingy, yucky plastic chairs and lots of people. All kinds of people. I was still excited, so I didn't care about my surroundings or the crowd. No one looked very excited. Most people looked downright constipated. We were handed various name badge thingies with colors on them. For the record, my tag had a yellow sticky on it. I proudly clipped the tag to my overall bibs and tried to focused on my book, all the time hoping they would call our "color."

The morning came and went, me stuck in the dirty, broken plastic chair. I hadn't lost hope, as many groups had been "let go," but we yellow sticker people were still holding on. As long as I was in that room, I still had a chance to be on a jury. I thought they were going to release us for the day when the Bailiff instead announced that we would be going to the court room.

THE COURTROOM! While other people were moaning, sobbing & poking their eyes out, I was dancing. I was going to the court room!

The Bailiff paraded us down this dark hallway and then processed us into the courtroom. We were told to sit in the benches. I sat tall, proudly, attentive. I took it all in. The lawyers were busy interviewing potential jurors and we were in line for our chance to do our patriotic duty. Of course, my attention span of a flea made it impossible for me to sit and do nothing, so I opened a piece of gum, popped it into my mouth and opened my book.

I then had my first taste of the court room: the judge literally stopped what he was doing and used me as his example. No reading. No eating. No gum. We were then sternly educated on how we needed to listen to the lawyers as they interviewed people for the jury. "Contempt of court!" he bellowed. I would be contempt of court if I didn't put that book down and spit out that gum.

I spit out my gum and wondered if he had been a nun in a previous life. I slowly put my book down and stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the glares of my yellow-sticky badged peeps.

Next thing I knew I was being interviewed by the lawyers. Questions about my education, employment history, hobbies, relations with people in the medical field, legal woes. I was so excited I almost piddled. I didn't know what the hell the questions had to do with anything but I answered them proudly, loudly, clearly.

Next next thing I knew I was on the jury. SCORE!

Because the Universe has a very, very good sense of humor, it is only fitting that I was on a jury for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Being that the Universe likes poetic justice, it is only fitting that I was on a week long jury for a trial about....

.....poop.

Seriously. The hearing was about bowel surgery gone wrong. All.about.poop.

Can I tell you how very, very hard it was for me not to burst out in laughter when people were talking about pooping problems for hours on end? (Pun intended) I must admit, the hearing kept my interest. Doctors. Lots of doctors. X-rays, lab tests, photos, medical equipment, description upon description about pooping problems. Doctors arguing about poop. Experts flown in from other parts of the country to talk about poop. Demonstrations of how to actually use the medical equipment. (You have not lived until you've seen a demonstration of the endoscopy. It's like a periscope only not.) Personal stories of how the supposedly botched surgery ruined lives--yes, I said lives, for it wasn't "just" the claimant whose life was ruined--her hubby, her children, probably even the dog's lives were ruined. Stories of exploding diarrhea. Testimony from the hubby about lost opportunities for making sweet love. Lost wages. Lost lives. Lost sections of bowel.

Just for the record: the lady claiming her life had been ruined by this surgery--the lady who said she couldn't go anywhere because of her exploding diarrhea--the lady who said she could no longer eat food--the lady who said she had to keep a bucket in her car due to her inopportune bowel movements--NEVER left the court room once to go shoot shit out of her butt AND was observed by this writer to be eating a CHILI DOG for lunch during a lunch break in the trial. May I just say that if you are ever on trial and you are claiming that your life has been ruined by uncontrolled pooping problems, make sure you run out of the court room a few times for dramatic effect.

Soooooo, you are asking yourself, "what the hell could be the problem with this jury duty thing? This sounds like the absolutely perfect hearing for you. Who else deserves a WEEK's worth of poop talk? Who else could appreciate a week's worth of poop talk? Who else could live through a week's worth of poop? Who else could love anything about a colonoscopy?"

Oh, we'll get to that.

I must stay, one of the weird thing about juries is that you can't talk about the trial, not even with your jury peers. So, you are stuck in this jury room with a bunch of strangers with only one thing in common and you can't talk about that one thing. Go figure. Any time we would try to talk about poop or make fun of poop or make fun of anything, the Bailiff would give us the stink eye and we'd shut up. No fun at all. All this poop material and not a place to use it.

After a week of poop, it was time. The judge sent us to the jury room and told us not to come out until there was a verdict. I thought this sounded simple enough. Smile, vote, make a verdict, go home. It seemed so clear cut to me. This wasn't malpractice. This was just some skanky people looking to get money. This was a "not guilty let's go home" kind of thing.

I was very, very wrong.

Twelve people with nothing in common except they got picked for this particular jury. Twelve people with very different opinions about just about everything. Eleven people who for some unknown reason decided is should serve as the foreman.

Welcome.To.Hell.

At first, Hell doesn't look too bad. This task seemed easy enough. Ten of us were quite sure there was nothing even remotely close to malpractice--we were ready to say "not guilty" (with much confidence, I might add) and go home. But, no. Hell's beauty is a facade. Two of the jurors were in the "medical profession." Read: one was a receptionist in a medical office and the other worked in a file room. Being that they were such qualified medical professionals, they decided they knew more than the ten of us. They asked to see the x-rays. They read lab results out loud. They looked again and again at the x-rays....

The receptionist and file clerk held us hostage.

Yelling, arguing, swearing, pointing. I wasn't sure these two had all been listening to the same trial. People wanted to go home; people were hungry; people didn't give a shit. (Another intended pun) It was a nightmare. This wasn't what I pictured. This wasn't 12 people thoughtfully considering the law. This wasn't anything remotely civic duty-ish. This wasn't a jury of peers. This was a bunch of people arguing, mostly about things that weren't about the trial. Why the hell a receptionist and a file clerk were looking at x-rays was beyond me.

By midnight, we were angry, tired, sick of each other. We tried the "hung jury" approach, but the judge would have none of that. That just pissed him off. He thought about sequestering us, but in the end let us go home for a few hours. By the time I got home, it was time to turn around and go meet the Bailiff for breakfast. It was a silent breakfast, followed by more yelling, arguing, swearing. The two medical "experts" wouldn't budge. They decided the mass on the x-ray did (0r, was it didn't?) look like cancer. They pondered how this or that....they weren't budging. No matter what the ten of us said, they stood with the family.

It got butt ugly.

At one point, I got so mad, I delivered an impassioned tirade, pointing and spewing spittle, slammed my book down on the table (still carrying that contraband book around) and left to pee. It was silent when I got back. We took another vote.....10-2. So much for passionate tirades. After many hours--some silent, some loud--the two "medical experts" finally got pissed off enough and decided to "change their vote" so "we can just go home." They made it quite clear that they believed the doctors were wrong and should pay big bucks, but in our interest, they were changing their votes so we could go home.

Great. Justice served.

For about one-billionth of a second, I thought about deliberating more; after all, how could we in good conscience come to a verdict that wasn't chosen by all? How could we make this unanimous decision that wasn't in any way unanimous? How could we allow the justice system to run in this tainted way?

.....but, once that one-billionth of a second passed, I went screaming toward the Bailiff and assured him we had reached the verdict. I decided that if they said it was their vote, it was good enough for me. Who was I to judge why they had changed their vote to not guilty? Maybe they really did come to terms with things and decide this really was a not guilty kind of situation. I did my civic duty. I stood there and read the verdict of "NOT GUILTY" to all in the court room. The judge dismissed us and we went silently to our cars, never to speak to each other again, never to see each other again.

It was at that very moment I decided that if it ever came down to it, I would NEVER have a jury trial. Never. Never. Never. It is impossible for twelve people to agree on anything. I'd rather have my life in the hands of one elected person rather than twelve crazed know-it-all citizens. I've seen what goes on in the jury room and I don't want any part of it.

The trial part? All good. Fabulous! Loved it. Poop for days! Heaven.

The deliberation? Like they ask in A Bug's Life, "Who ordered the poo poo platter?" Hell.

I like poop--I like poop A LOT--but not when it's served in court room by a jury who is full of more poo than is found on a poo poo platter. And so, the next time I get called to jury duty, I will make sure they know I was the foreman of a trial and how I believe I fulfilled my civic duty. If that doesn't work, I'll let them know how much I really do not want to ever serve on a jury again.

If that doesn't work, I'll read a book and chew gum in the courtroom. I'll talk in a hysterical manner about court-poop experience. I'll start quoting the movie, "12 Angry Men." I'll bring in a letter from my psychiatrist. I'll develop a spontaneous, previously-undiagnosed case of Tourette's. I will speak in tongues. I will burst into a hormone-driven hot-flash blaze of perimenopausal glory. I will scream, "I HAVE A POOCH AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT!"

Any lawyer with a lick of sense and any judge who has seen the wrath of a woman with recent pooch development will send me right home.

Just sayin.'
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