Jury + knitting

I had jury duty today. I had a feeling that it would take forever for anything to happen, so I thought it would be a good idea to bring my knitting with me to feel rpductive while I waited to fulfill my civic duty. I show up to the courthouse, place my bag through the scanner that looks remarkably like the ones you'd find in airport security, and begin to walk through the metal detector. The woman looking at the bags looks at me and asks "Do you have knitting needles in your bag" My heart sinks. I say yes. "You're going to need to put those back in your car. Dammit. So I go back out, put them in the car, and come back to a sudden long line whith some rather moody people (trying to stick their paper lunch bag in the Xray machine and being angry when the security woman kept trying to hand it back and give her proper instructions...). I do get through and then have to wait in the juror room along with the others as they file in.

8:45am and we finally get our questionairres to fill out and turn in. I get mine done, stare at the floor, stare at the ceiling, stare at my shoes, the people near me, the people on the other side of the room, and the pictures of past and present judges on the wall. And thought about my knitting. We finally get "orientation" as in "don't lie on your surveys, and by the way if you are employed by the state/county/etc you won't get your $15/day juror pay (wtf?!?! I make MORE than that in an hour!)" before watchng a video on how cool it really is to be a juror, and how you can learn so much, and hey! these jurors kept in touch after the trail! Be a juror; meet new friends! I smell a new dating service in the making. The moment the viedo started playing I wanted to burst out laughing. However, even at 9am I was smart enough to NOT start making fun of the video, seeing as how I was in the courthouse and all. Thank you, you wonderfully strong 2 cups of coffee that I drank at 6am, for making me think before ending up on the other side of the juror's bench. I laughed very hard on the inside.

After the quite amusing video we got a "20 minute break". I bought a muffin (after being informed that we could be there as late as 5pm; thanks for letting us know BEFORE HAND...I could have packed my own paper bag lunch and tried to force it through the Xray machine) and ate it back in the juror waiting room thing. 20 minutes turned into 30. 30 turned into 50. After that, I kinda lost count. At about minute 18 I was thinking "you know... I could be KNITTING right now. I could be zoning out while my fingers ran circles around needles and yarn, but Nooooooo. Knitting needles are too much of a weapon." So I did the staring at everyone, my shoes, the ceiling/floor/pictures thing again. Until I found a tennis magazine. I was 2 pages away from the end when I hear a shreik "ALL RISE!!!" At that point the judge came in and told us that all the trials set for today had reached "deals" (or agreements or whatever it was he used) and that we would not be needed. And I didn't get any knitting done.

The bright side of this whole thing? I am exempt from being called to a jury again for at least 12 months. Sweet! And I had a half day of work. And I still expect my $15 if only to pay for the damn #@%$T expensive ass gas that it took to get there and NOT knit. ;o)