I've Reached a Verdict

Loathing a jury summons is almost as American as apple pie in my world. I teach in the public school system for cryin' out loud! Why should I still be subjected to serving my country by sitting in a room with hundreds of strangers hoping I'll be out early enough to grab a decent lunch and afternoon nap?

Today it occurred to me that hating jury duty does not stem from the fact that it takes me out of my classroom for a whole day, which should be enough. No, I despise jury duty because the city does nothing to show me any kind of gratitude for bothering to show up.

I've served at the main courthouse downtown and at the jail/courthouse. However, my summons this time was for the municipal court, a building I've only ever seen in passing. (Actually, the only thing I knew about it before today was that it was where Oswald was placed after the Kennedy Assassination. I didn't know they actually still used the building.) Usually the summons tells you where to park, but this one didn't. Problem #1 and this was before I even left my house.

I left with plenty of time to drop my son off at daycare and face some morning traffic to get to the building on time. Now, I know that downtown likes to play cruel tricks on unsuspecting drivers with one way streets that make getting lost easy and getting back on track a pain in the neck. Well today my problem was NOT wanting to make a turn in a direction a street did not permit. The problem was that even though I needed and wanted to turn left and the street was a one way going left, drivers are not allowed to turn left on the left going one way street between the hours of 7 and 9 A.M. (It was 8:30 A.M.) WHAT THE DEUCE?! That makes zero sense. How can I possibly turn around if I'm not allowed to turn down any streets? I ended up passing one of my friend's apartment building three times today because all I could do was go up and down Main Street.

Once I managed to get back on the end of town where the Municipal Building is located, I realized that I had no idea where I was supposed to park. This court is already in a slightly seedy area and none of the "parking lots" manned by men with little orange flags to wave customers in were appealing to a mild-manner five footer from the suburbs. So again I had to drive all the way down to the other end of Main Street before being able to about face and look for a parking garage near the court (at this point it is 8:45 A.M.).

On my second round about the Municipal Building I notice a parking garage to my right. Yea! Oh wait...there it goes because I CANNOT TURN ONTO THE STREET WHERE THE ENTRANCE IS LOCATED. Son of a...

Finally at 9:00 A.M. I pulled into the parking garage and notice it will cost me $12 to park there. Maybe they validate? (Turns out they don't. Gee, what a gracious way to thank me for my civil service.)

At least I parked near the garage entrance that is directly across the street from the building entrance. Nope, wrong! They even posted a police officer at the door to tell people that the entrance we had to use was around the corner. Then why on Earth would you have an entrance where you would need to post an officer if it's not used as an entrance?

I must be spoiled from my other jury duty experiences because I found this place a complete dump. It has to be the arm pit of our city's justice system. Come 9:30 A.M. (the time the summons demanded we report) and no one bothers to come to the dilapidated juror room to greet us or inform us about what would be going on for the day. There's not even an electronic system to give us a number for sorting purposes. (I'm still convinced they just threw all of our summons into a gigantic hat and picked the 15 they needed.) At 10:15 A.M. a very nice judge came in and made us recite our oaths. By 12:30 P.M. I was on my way to meet my mom for lunch.

In the end I was not chosen. BUT it doesn't change how unappreciated I truly feel because the city did nothing to make it easier for me to be at jury duty. At least they could have gone halfsies with me on my parking!