Jury Duty

Today I was supposed to be on jury duty, but at the last minute was called and told the case had been settled out of court and I was no longer needed.

Now, many of you are likely imagining my giant sigh of relief; in reality, I couldn't be more upset. And while this attitude is clearly unsupported by conventional wisdom, I assure you my sentiment contains no sarcasm (for once).

Why do we hate jury duty so much?!? I love it!

In all honesty, I've been looking forward to this for months. Early this summer I received the initial letter - you are on our list and will be contacted about a specific case - and so I sent in my acceptance. Arriving home from our wedding and honeymoon (and our honeymoon's honeymoon of driving across the country), I received a second letter - you have been selected for a case and are required to appear on Thursday, October 4, 2012 for trial. I dutifully marked my calender (pun intended) and the anticipation began!!

What kind of case would this be? What questions would I be asked? Would I be the kind of juror lawyers strove to accept or, more likely, the guy they couldn't wait to vote out of the pool? Who would the other jurors be? What kind of conversations would we have? Who would take the lead? Would it be a clear case (god I hoped not)? How would we settled arguments? Would we deliberate (ooooohhhhh, deliberate!) for days? Would it be a small little boring case we decided in 10 minutes or would I somehow be lucky enough to be part of the biggest trial Missoula had seen in years?!!? The anticipation was killing me!!!

I even heard we got free lunch! And our parking tickets validated!!!! What is there NOT to love!??!

Dilbert's got it right.

And then...poof! Gone.

I trust my name is still on the list and thus my hope remains this story is but only paused, not ended. The ugly chapter in my love story - waiting, longing for reciprocation - begins now.