I had jury duty yesterday

Man oh man it sucked. I'd never actually been called before for various reasons (too young, pretending to go to college, serving as U.S. congressman), but this time I got the notice in the mail and there was nothing I could do to get out of showing up to the courtroom at Early O'Clock yesterday.

As happy as I was to miss a day of work, and as competitive as jury duty's tax-free $6 a day is with my current employment, my job has one thing going for it that jury duty does not: internet access coupled with relatively low levels of supervision (I did not get hired to write this blog entry, but I got paid while I wrote it all the same). I love the American justice system as much as the next douchebag, but I'd rather get paid to listen to internet radio and google "monkeys doing it" than decide whether a fellow citizen stole a tire. No way in hell I'm getting picked to serve on a damn jury.

I knew I had to get out of my civic duty, and I knew exactly how. My Grandpa Nestor once told me that if I ever get called for jury duty I should prove to them I'm crazy. If at all possible, beat someone up with a mop bucket or something, but any way you get the job done is fine as long as you can convince everyone you're a total lunatic. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's shirking responsibility. And if there are two things I'm good at, it's shirking responsibility and beating people up with mop buckets.

Unfortunately, there weren't any mop buckets to be found at the courthouse. Also unfortunately, my backup method of displaying mental instability was less than ideal (I panicked and smeared a poop on the guy standing next to me, who turned out to be a courthouse officer); while it did help to prove I was nuts, more importantly it helped get my ass kicked (plus I got some of my own poop on my clothes and hands, and any day that happens is never a good day). Also also unfortunately, I realized after it was far too late that I confused Grandpa Nestor's advice on dealing with jury duty with Grandpa Nestor's advice on dealing with a prison sentence. His jury duty advice had to do with bringing a book, staring at the defendent, and casually tossing around racial slurs.

Anyway, long story short, yesterday sucked a lot. I didn't get picked to serve on a jury, but I'm due back to that goddamn courthouse in a month and a half, and my attorney says that with all the surveilence cameras and eyewitnesses I'm probably going to have to plead no contest.

Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes you don't get the bear.