Yesterday was a LONG day. The parts of it where we were actually doing the jury selection process were interesting, but for the most part it was just a lot of sitting around and waiting. From 9 in the morning until 5:30 in the evening. I was sick of reading for goodness sake. That's saying something.
My morning started out well enough. I left just a little after my normal leave time... giving me extra minutes in case of traffic, and to make a stop at WaWa for a to-go bottle of milk and some hash browns (mmm, wawa hash browns... I lurve them). I also grabbed some fruit for a mid-morning snack, in addition to the cereal bar I'd thrown in my purse (bored meegs always = hungry meegs). I got the the courthouse around quarter of 9, ready to do my civic duty*... passed through the metal detector, on to the jury lounge, where I got a bright red button that read "Juror", was handed a clipboard of papers (including a questionaire) and got all settled into a chair (with about 90 other people).
Now here's where it gets fun... because you can't just fill out this yes/no questionaire, you have to watch a video on HOW to fill out this yes/no questionaire. Uhhhh, really? So I have to spend an hour sitting in this room
before you play the 20 minute video
before I can fill out the questionaire that will even determine
if I might possibly get selected for "round two" of jury selection? Awesome. After the video is watch and the questions are answered, we sit around for a few more hours while it is determined if any of the cases on ballot are actually going to go to trial, or if they are going to settle out of court. The news comes that one of the criminal cases is going to trial, so 60 persons are selected to be in the pool of possible jurors. Juror #50 right here people.
By this time it's already 11:30, and we're lined up outside the jurors lounge in numerical order. Then we stood there, and stood there, and stood there... for about 20 minutes, when they brought us back into the room and told us we were all being excused for lunch. But we should be back by 1:30. I headed out and met Ro for lunch, which was nice.
I was back in the juror room by 1:20... at which point we sat some more. Around 1:50 they finally put us back in the hall, where we waited for another 20 minutes before being led upstairs to a courtroom. There we were sworn in as potential-jurors, and went through a question and answer session with the judge (which I really enjoyed). We were all questioned at the same time and if your answer was Yes, you stood until your number was recorded. After about 20 - 30 minutes of that the judge put on a masking noise (it sounded like TV static) and they started calling individual people up to the stand to be questioned by the judge and lawyers. They probably called about 28 people, not necessarily 1-28, just that many total. In all it took until just before 5 o'clock. It was long... and frankly, boring, since I didn't get called for the individual questioning and you couldn't hear what they were saying. I alternated between reading, playing sudoku, and just hanging out. My butt hurt from the hard benches and damn was I hungry at that point.
After that we had to put away all of our items and sit quietly while the lawyers made their cuts, then the jurors were announced. Obviously, since I wasn't questioned, I wasn't picked. I was a little bummed about that as I would have been interested in participating in an actual criminal trial... but at least I'm done with that. Once the jurors were picked, they stayed behind to receive instructions, while the rest of us headed back down to the juror lounge. We received our checks ($12, rock on), then we were free to go! I got out at 5:30, at which point I headed to pick up Ro (otherwise she would have had to stay at work until Pat got her... around 7), took her home, then headed home myself. I reiterate, it was a LONG day.
Not to mention that when I got home I found Trav pouring over a letter letting us know that we're being audited! Argh! Without going into too many details, a few years ago I got a big check from the government of money that was owed to me, and should have been paid over a number of previous years. However since there had been a mistake and I hadn't received the money, they gave it to me in one lump sum. Taxes for that year were obviously a bit confusing, but Trav looked up every single rule on the situation and figured out exactly what to do. As that was a few years ago we thought we were in the clear... apparently, not so much. However the letter says that we'll be fine if we can just provide documentation backing up why we filed the way we filed, so now Trav had to craft a letter explaining everything, and copy all the documents that support it. Yuck.
I'll let you know what happens.
Well, now I'm back at work with a ton to do... so I'm going to get to it. But that's my jury duty wrap up!
* is it funny or just weird that everytime I hear civic duty I think "and I don't mean pooping in the courthouse bathroom..." *buh-dum-ching*
Weekly Review 
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