Magic Day Part 1

Today has been a magic day so far. I was already looking forward to today because I'm doing this painting class tonight and will write more about that later. Last night, I called in for my jury duty as I have been since Friday and lo and behold I was actually called in today. I have never served before, so I was a bit nervous. By this morning, that nervousness had turned more to excitement. As most people who know me know, I'm obsessed with cop shows. I started with Barney Miller and Baretta, Starsky and Hutch. Later it was Law & Order and CSI, Mystery on PBS, any series on the BBC. I was walking into a real courthouse for the first time since I went on a field trip in the 5th grade. A real criminal, real judge. As I walked into the building, I thought, "I wish I could work here."

I checked in, sat in the jury assembly room for about an hour or so, went through the orientation, blah blah. Finally we went upstairs to the courtroom, and as I walked in, I realized the defendant was standing right there. I hadn't expected him to be in the room for some reason, I thought it would just be the lawyers and the judge and such. He was this scruffy, stocky man, probably in his 30's wearing a mustard yellow jumpsuit that had Orange County Jail printed on the back. He was standing up and watching us all come in and smiling. He sat at a table with his lawyer, who was this tall young guy with a shaved head. Very slick, very young lawyer, and he talked the entire time! The judge gave us instructions and explanations and asked the jurors that were picked questions and this guy kept talking to his lawyer through the whole thing and no one every shushed him or anything! I was really surprised about that. He was creepy and there was definitely something weird about him. He was charged with threatening someone with a metal pipe back in January. It was a misdemeanor charge, but I think he had been in custody all this time. His lawyer got up and began asking questions of the jurors and most of them were about how do you feel about people that might be considered a little off or crazy, so I think there was something really wrong with him. It was fascinating, completely fascinating.

I didn't get on the case, which is fine, although I was kind of hoping that I would. Not that my job would be to keen about that, but fuck em. I was home before 12 and have just been mucking about the rest of the day. And as I walked up the path to my apartment, I realized it was a magic day because it was so completely unplanned and out of the ordinary and rather than being thrown by that, I had managed to not only go along with it but enjoy it.