Reason 105

Jury duty. A few weeks ago I opened my mailbox only to discover, among the coupons and catalogs, a summons for jury duty. The letter starts out with an exuberant "congratulations!", so I was quite excited at the prospect of serving my civic duty, even though it would mean scrambling to find sub coverage, cranking out daily lesson plans, and returning to school each afternoon to make sure my students hadn't burned the place down in my absence. So far, so good. Today was my first day of this illustrious opportunity and it was jam-packed with a whole lot of sitting around. Apparently, the 8am call time was interpreted as flexible by some community members because we weren't tortured by the informative introductory video until 9:15am. Jason, if you and I were friends I could have spent that hour texting you all kinds of riveting details about the riffraff cozying up to me in the jurors' 'green room'. Everyone I know works a boring 9-to-5 job and would have been unavailable to conduct a texting marathon with me. I've been on film sets and know how much down time actors must endure, so I bet you could've found time for a chat while sitting in hair and makeup or waiting for NPH to finally learn his dang lines. Alas, we are not friends (yet), so I had to entertain myself by correcting vocabulary quizzes, reading a book, and inconspicuously checking out the smattering of semi-attractive, single men in the room. I may be chosen for a 10-day trial, so feel free to post your top secret phone number below. Receiving a "you just got lawyered" text would make the whole rigamarole worth it and, honestly, I'm not sure I can last two weeks on books and lesson planning alone.