“Going Postal”? How About “Going Juror”?

I’ve been on jury duty this week. Had to call in every day, not knowing whether I’d have to throw away my schedule to satisfy the court or not. Of course, Thursday evening I was told I needed to call in at 10:00 Friday morning. And then at 10:00 Friday morning I was told I’d have to call in again at 1:30 in the afternoon.

And, of course – after a week of calling in – when I called in at 1:30 I was told I’d have to come in at 3:15. On a Friday. So I can pretty much be guaranteed to have to come back Monday.

Just in case I didn’t realize that the government owns me whenever it wants to.

Now, I thought if Obama got elected, we’d be free at last of our indentured servitude of the white master. But here we are, just 10 days into his presidency, and I’m already in even worse bondage than I was before.

So after reporting in at the assembly room, I was told to go with the rest of the herd to court room 3R. As our names were called, we were to say our names as we filed out. “Mooo – I mean – Michael Eden,” I said.

I don’t know how that line went over in your cavern, but it killed in the assembly room.

I got a chance to slay ’em again in the elevator, as the same people who laughed at my “cattle impersonation” crammed into the elevator.  I said, “This just takes me right back to that whole,  ‘feeling like cattle’ thing.”

The judge displayed quite a sense of humor when he showed up, too.  I suppose “gallows humor” includes the people who have to show up and decide which necks get stretched in the gallows.

There were 58 of us in our herd (I counted) waiting to go into the court room and be culled into a smaller herd of 12 + 1. And what were we all there for?

To hear a misdemeanor case involving a man charged with driving under the influence, with a blood alcohol content of .08 or higher.

The judge explained that the accused decided he wanted a jury trial, and by law today was the last day to schedule a trial to hear the case of a man who was arrested in March of 2008.

Kind of infuriating. I mean, all of us sitting there because of this turkey. It’s not like he’s some poor innocent schmuck who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He knows he drank booze and drove. And now I’ve got to sit there – wasting at least two days of a relatively productive life – because this jerk is trying to weasel his way out of admitting he did what he did.

And, of course, the same damn California court system that is imposing the harshest global warming agenda in the damn country is making me and 57 other people drive back and forth. I had a 29-mile one-way drive. And I drove my gas-guzzling and smog-spewing ’71 455 HO-engined Pontiac to make it even worse. I only drove her today because she needed a good drive after spending too much time as “garage queen.” But as my act of civil protest, I’ll drive it to court every day.

Is it just me, or is jury duty becoming a annual rite? It used to be I’d go several years at a time and not even get a summons. And if I GOT a summons, I’d just call in every day for a week and complete my service. But now it’s every damn year. And every damn year I’m stuck on a damn jury. Some guy driving around like a drunk slob. Some societal reject who can’t even make it down the block without having drugs in his possession. Some total loser beating his wife or girlfriend so he can pretend he’s a man. There are way too many losers now, and apparently way too few normal people to waste their lives hearing their sorry cases.

Man, is our society going to hell. According to the judge, the Riverside Superior Court isn’t even hearing civil cases anymore because the backlog of criminal cases is so high. We can’t build enough jails to house all our losers, vermin, and predators. And one out of every twenty Americans is now expected to do serious jail time in his life, with 1 in every 100 Americans actually in prison right now.

Of course, the nice thing about being a criminal going to court is that they at least take care of your transportation and your meals.