Civic Duty

It was approximately 9:30 on Monday night when I stood up and shouted, "I have jury duty tomorrow." I had totally forgotten. And what terrible timing. No assistant (Lana has moved on to a new job) and Sue in Hawaii. Really? I had so much to get done today. All stuff that I had PUT OFF at 5:30 yesterday. If I had just done it. 
By 9:45 I had sent all the frantic emails I possibly could and showed up at 9am at the Hayward Supreme Court. 

My fellow potential jurors and I. This was taken when the novelty had not yet worn off. One group was called. Another group was called. And of course they do it alphabetically, and of course my last name was still Waggoner at the time, so I would wait and wait until they got to the end of the list. Then disappointment. 
Finally a third group! And me! It was only 11am. We could still get a solid half day in (what is this? when do I actively want to go to work). We gathered for instructions. The instructions were to go to lunch and be back by 1:30. 
By 3 we were in the courtroom. As luck would have it- a big case. They're canvasing multiple groups of jurors. So the option was to stand in front of the judge and share the "hard times" that would prevent one from participating in the trial (I don't have any hard times) OR answer a questionnaire and come back next Tuesday. The case has something to do (maybe) with stealing cars-ish. One question asked if I or someone I knew had been a victim of a crime. I wrote "Me: smashed car window/phone stolen. Husband: stolen car." And underlined it three times.