jury doodie

The ordeal of jury duty didn't turn out to be that bad after all. I was only there for the one day, had a pretty long lunch break and a great cheeseburger, got out at 4, and only had to sit through one voir dire. My out on the case was pretty much handed to me on a silver platter; it was a civil negligence suit against a home health care attendant. When the lawyer asked if any of us had any experience with home health care, I told them that we had had home health care for my dad just before he died. The lawyers actually looked like they felt like jerks when they asked me how recently it was and I said May. They even took me out of the room to tell me that they would definitely dismiss me from this case but they wanted me to sit for the rest of the voir dire so that the other jurors didn't know that I was dismissed. I wasn't even trying to play a sympathy card, I was just honest. I will admit, however, that I wasn't thrilled at the idea of sitting a case about suing a home health attendant when I knew that I was just going to sit there and think of my dad. I didn't even tell them that we donated a bunch of money to the agency. It was a good way to get out of a case, but not as good as the hospital nurse who started ranting about certain private home nurse companies that she'd had experience with. The lawyers were trying really hard to shut her up but she was loud. I was laughing.

After that, I didn't get called for another case, I just sat there, freezing my ass off and reading a Spenser novel. By the way, Robert B. Parker novels are the perfect length for the single-day jury duty, I started it as soon as I got there and had only 5 pages left when they let us go. Off the hook for 8 years!