Please Thank and Excuse

After 10 plus years of tracking me down, my state’s court system finally got me to fulfill my civic duty and perform jury duty. I’ve had co-workers and friends share their horror stories about being trapped in room all day with no food or water, ready to snap. I’ve also had a friend tell me how easy it is to meet women there because they’re lonely and bored. I didn’t know whether he was talking about jury duty or a funeral. I have another friend who met a woman there and spent enough time with her that we started calling her “jury duty”. Exaggerations from various people aside, I wasn’t too geeked up about the possibility of being bored to death.

They said to get there by 7:30. Being the anti-CP Time brother that I am I arrived at 7:15, only to find out that I could have arrived at 8:30 and no one would have cared. You owe me an extra hour of sleep State of Maryland! I was given a juror number and told that from now on that number would be my identification. The courthouse workers announced these names and numbers with the enthusiasm of a motor vehicle teller. This didn’t seem like time to ask if I could just go by Allweez. At 9:00 we were rounded up by number and order to march into the courtroom one by one. Once in the courtroom we were seated in order by number and told the nature of the case. Attempted Murder and Sexual Assault was the charge! Uh, I didn’t sign up for this is what I was thinking until I remembered that no one signed up for this, we just simply exercised our right to vote.

Next we were introduced to two opposing attorneys and the defendant himself. One of my favorite words in the dictionary is “crazy” and this n*gga, excuse me this brother looked CRAZY! He made Crazy Inside Out Camouflage man from the Super Bowl post look like Bryant Gumbel. The judge asked if anyone one had a reason why they wouldn’t be able to adhere to the rules of the court and about 10 people stood up to say that they followed the rules of Jehovah. (That damn Jay-Z almost had me write Jay-Hova) I have nothing against Jehovah Witnesses but after the 5th person started saying the laws of Jehovah, I was praying for a simple “ditto”. The judge then asked if anyone had been a victim or had family that had been a victim of a violent crime. Of course 90% of the court room stood up, including me. Since this is a sensitive topic for most people, the judge had people walk up to the bench and tell him, the two attorneys and the crazy looking defendant about their’s or their family member’s violent crime experience. I quickly realized that people were going to use this opportunity to get their 10 seconds of shine on. A couple of the female jurors treated the distance from their seat to the judge as their own personal model runway. The fellas did that slow stroll to the front basically to make sure they don’t trip in front of 75 people. I hit them with the same bop that I perfected in the 7th grade to get girls even though I only weighed 75 lbs and had huge glasses. All of the cool left my body though when I could feel the crazy defendant staring at me with his Samuel Jackson “Lakeview Terrace” eyes. I told the judge that a family member had been the victim of a sexual assault but that wouldn’t influence my ability to be apart of a fair trial. Both the prosecutor and the defense scribbled down notes and I was shown back to my seat. After they got rid of about 30 jurors, it was time to pick the actual 12. Since my juror number was in the 50’s, the 12 jurors were picked before my number was called. But then they started dropping jurors and adding new ones. By this time it was around 1:00 and I was starving and ready to go home and look at the spreads for the NBA games (I have gambling “habit”). Needless to say I was ready to get the hell out of there. When it came time for my number to be called, the prosecutor looked at me and said “please seat” your honor. The defense attorney looked at me and quickly said “please thank and excuse your honor”. WHAT? Who are you telling to thank and excuse!....Then I thought “Oh wait that means I get to go home”. I almost got blinded by the uneasy feeling of rejection. So George Jeffersoned my way out of there! All in all, it wasn’t as bad as advertised. I almost feel bad for earning a full day’s salary for it …….Almost.