Summoned!

Last week, I was talking to a friend and coworker who recently moved from another state, which he was trying to convince that he no longer lived in, since he had gotten called for jury duty.

I remember thinking "wow, it's been 10 years since I turned 18 and I've never had jury duty".

So of course, when I check my mail yesterday, sandwiched between an ad for housepainting and the bill for my Chase Freedom Visa card is an enevelope from the Baltimore County Circuit Court. Since I don't have any outstanding warrants and am pretty sure nobody is suing me, I had a pretty good idea what it was.

Yup, a summons for jury duty. December 8th at 8:30 AM, I need to, under penalty of arrest, report to the Baltimore County Courthouse to serve on a petit jury for one day or one case.

This sucks. I'm in the middle of a ton of projects at work, all of which I'm behind on. I have a bunch of doctor's and dentist appointments that I need to make that I've put off because of it, and now the government - under penalty of arrest - is making me lose time working to go serve on a jury. Yes, I could request a different date, but it might be even worse a date, especially if it's for when I'm going to be out of town for Christmas.

I've never liked the idea of paid professional jurors, but now I'm starting to like the idea. The idea that one bad juror who always or never believes the state or the defendant worries me, but interrupting people's lives seems unfair.

It could be worse, though. They do pay for parking and $15 for expenses, and my employer does pay for jury duty and doesn't count it against vacation days. And the info they sent says that have free wi-fi in the waiting area, so the Macbook Pro is coming with me - maybe I can even squeeze off a few blog posts.