Monday, December 16th, I had jury duty at the Guilford County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro. One of
the most boring days of my entire life.
I got up at 6:00 AM (?!) and had to be in the jury room by 8:15 AM. Yikes.
There was free parking at a parking lot and a parking garage 2-3 streets over from the courthouse, but that was too far to walk on a morning when it was 29 degrees.
(With a breeze on top of that, no less, making it feel even colder.) So I parked in the parking garage diagonally across and down the street a bit. It was still a very cold walk
(I was shaking and shivering), but not as miserable as it would've been walking from the free parking garage.
When I finally got inside the building, I had to pick up a bin, put my purse inside the bin, and take off my coat. The line moved at a decent pace and when I got to the scanner machine thing
(totally blanking on what that's called), of which there were three, I told the security lady that I had a nail file in my purse.
(A sign outside said that we had to let them know about nail files, scissors, knives, etc.) She asked me to get it out, which I did, and then told me that I could have it stored for 25 cents or throw it away. I told her to just go ahead and throw it away. I can buy a new one. So she handed it back to me, along with my purse, bin, and coat, and told me to go back to the desk near the doors to take care of that. Seriously? She couldn't just throw it in the trash near her and let me through? *rolling my eyes*
When I finally made it back through security and to the jury room on the 3rd floor, it was around 8:20. And so began a long, excruciatingly boring day.
Sometime around 8:30 or so, a man came in and talked to us about what the schedule would be for the day, what we could expect, and those who could be excused from jury duty
(felons, people who can't understand English or are hard of hearing or aren't citizens, etc.). When he left, I got out the book I had brought
(Under the Same Sky, by Genevieve Graham) and read a few chapters, but then my head started to hurt a little bit and feel kind of sluggish. So, then I messed around on Facebook on my phone, but after awhile there was nothing new to read there. So, then I played a few hands of solitaire, but that got boring. *sigh* Lather, rinse, repeat.
Around 10:30, the lady who sits in the office in the jury assembly room
(I can't remember what her title is) came into the room. She said that of the four court rooms
(and four cases), only one would need a jury that day. She began reading names off of a list of people who were chosen as potential jurors for that case and I prayed she would skip over my name. While not being chosen as a potential juror would mean continuing to be bored in the jury assembly room, being chosen could mean more than a day serving on the jury and I couldn't do that, being a homeschool mom and no one else to watch/teach my kids for days on end.
My kids, by the way, were with my mom, who happened to be off work that day. She had a CAT scan
(which came back negative - no cancer) and, of course, had to bring my kids with her, but she wasn't there long.
Anyway, my name did get skipped over. Yay! But of the 29 people whose names they called, if less than 12 of them were chosen for the case, more people would have to be chosen from the remaining pool of potential jurors in the jury assembly room. So there was still the possibility of having my name called. Thankfully, that never happened.
So, anyway, more boredom in the jury assembly room. Ugh. I wanted so bad to go home, but you can't leave until they release you. And though I'm an introvert, I wished so much that people would've started conversations with one another that I could've maybe felt comfortable enough to participate in. But no one talked. I did talk a little bit
(a few sentences) with a woman standing next to me waiting for the elevators to go to lunch and I had hoped that it would maybe create enough of a connection for us to talk while we waited, but nothing more came of it. *sigh*
So, yeah, lunch. Before lunch, the office lady had said something about us probably being able to leave early
(a juror's day is typically 8:15 AM to 5:00 PM) since they only needed jurors for one case and 29 should be more than enough for them to get just 12 jurors. So I thought maybe we'd get to go home before lunch. Nope.
Lunchtime came
(12:30) and we were still there, so we were told we could go eat. Well, I didn't want to have to go back through security again
(not to mention walking to my car, driving somewhere, driving back, parking again, walking back to the courthouse), so I just went to the little lunch room on the lower ground floor where there were snack machines. Oh, joy. I chose a small bag of pretzels and a bottle of water.
I took one bite of a pretzel
(I had been up since 6:00 and this was the first thing I ate) and instantly felt sick before it even hit my stomach. I felt very strongly that I was going to throw up and then I felt very strongly that I was going to faint. I was hot, clammy, and shaky. I sat with my head in my hands, elbows on the table, and waited for it to pass. After a few minutes, I felt slightly better and slowly began to nibble on the pretzels and take sips of water. By the time I was done eating, I felt quite a bit better, but of course nowhere near satisfied. I couldn't wait to go home and actually eat something.
I went back to the jury assembly room around 1:15 and waited for lunch to be over at 2:00
(I did a little more reading, a little more FB, a little more solitaire), when the office lady was supposed to be back. She didn't come back until about 2:20 and then we had to wait a few more minutes for her to finally come back to the assembly room from her office and let us know what would happen next. Could we finally go home now? She read off the names of those who were in the assembly room, including my name, and then told us we could go home. Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus!
It was still a little cold outside, but not nearly as cold as it had been that morning. But I was just happy to be going home.
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Tuesday, December 17th, was mine and my husband's 19th wedding anniversary. 19 years. Wow. Practically unheard of in this day of divorcing rather than sticking it out through the hard times, staying true to your vows and the covenant you made with one another and with God - for better or worse, until death! There's a quote that says that when it comes to marriage, sometimes the better comes after the worse and I totally believe it.
I wish Charlie could've been here, but he's still in Oklahoma working. He should be flying home this weekend and then he'll have to go back to OK sometime after Christmas. We'll go on our anniversary date one night while he's here. I'll be glad to see him and spend time with him. Everyday I love him more.
