Monkey Poundcake

Yesterday, I did my civic duty and waited in the jury room all day while it rained outside. I got there earlier than I ever get to work and got settled. The room filled up over the next half-hour and I searched the crowd for interesting characters. I was interested to see which people would refuse to be constrained by the carefully placed stanchion directed traffic. Also those who found it far too pedestrian to walk around the rows of seats to get to the check-in station and excused their way through the rows. There was the guy who broke out of the group with which he entered to do just that and beat them to the podium. Winner! He was totally the coolest. There was the father and son team, the couple together at the end of the day that were not at the beginning, the highly irritated, the resigned, the productive, etc. I brought a crossword and two books. Not enough. I also had a nice cough at the start of the day which I staved off with drugs. Of course, those drugs also made me quite drowsy, but I wouldn't sleep. I didn't want to be that guy in the back row sawing logs while everyone tried not to look and laugh. I didn't want to be the 19-year old in the front doing that head bobbing thing for way longer than I've seen before without waking up. I also did not want to make any friends. I identified the chatties and made sure to stear clear. Being engrossed in a book is not always effective. Think of your last plane trip.

The good news is they anounced that, because we were all there, ready to go, 15 cases had settled. Okay, that's not the good news, the good news is I'm not on a jury!