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10.03.2006

"...No free man shall be taken or imprisoned...


8:00 am, feel like a working girl in lawyerish looking clothes.
take the bus, witness argument before reaching my destination.
Rm.318, county courthouse.
people with jobs talking on their cell phones VERY LOUDLY, we with no jobs are very impressed that they are missed at work.
one woman with a very grating voice announces that people always tell her that she looks younger than 47, man to her right laps it up.
i read a People magazine.
offer my magazine to a retired truck driver, she declines.
looks-younger-than-47 continues about her work-out routine, man to her right laps it up.
sit for three hours.
lunch break. witness road rage between driver and pedestrian
(think to myself: have americans always been this angry?)
Back in.
out of 180 people, juror #10 is the one token pacific islander.
oddly enough, it feels like being a finalist at a beauty pageant.
looks-younger-than-47 sits beside me, wonders out aloud why she was picked to be #9
(methinks, she thinks its a beauty paj too)
i try to read a book but looks-younger is very loud.
the man on my left gets tossed out for saying (after he first said under oath that he could be), that he couldn't be fair.
i wish i thought of that...but no, i take my oath rather seriously.
in fact, i am muttering oaths to drown out looks-younger.
am excused from more duties due to my half-day kindergartner.
(i knew she'd come in handy one day)
4:30 pm, put on my 'just another full day at the office' look.
no fights witnessed on the bus ride home.

...save by the lawful judgement of his peers."