Citizen Dave

It’s ten minutes past eight o’clock in the morning, and I have been in the Jury Corral for the past five minutes. Already I am feeling a surge of public service running through me, and so I took a moment to check out the “juror only” facilities located on the south end of the great big room filled with maroon chairs and grey modular furniture.
The anticipation of what comes next is the part that makes me crazy. I already know that there is no substitute assigned to my class today, so I am worried about the day stretching out in front of me. Maybe I should go check out the “workslips”.
At nine, we got a lot of important information, including the reminder for my that school district employees are also government employees and are therefore exempt from receiving the fifteen dollar stipend for reporting to jury duty. I reminded myself that this is because my government job will still pay me for days I miss, but that piece of information still weighs on my already mildly burdened sense of duty. What if there was a way to make jury duty pleasant? So far it hasn’t been unpleasant, with the lady making the orientation announcements doing her best zen-friendly to keep things positive. There is a regular chorus of “you won’t have to do this again for a year.” This, for now, will be my solace.
By ten o’clock, the natives were becoming restless, especially after the initial roll call had cleared out half the room. Those of us who were left in our seats made small talk before returning to our books or cell phones. I decided to keep writing, since I don’t know if I want to read of the continuing disintegration of Charles Schulz’s marriage, or calling the school to find out what havoc may or may not be taking place in my classroom. We have been told that we can have a “break” of twenty minutes, if we want to leave the jury room. A break from what? My breaks are generally sitting in front of my computer, or reading. These airport-style chairs are at least a couple notches higher on the comfort scale than the wooden seat I only rarely find myself upon in my classroom. For now, it’s splendid isolation.
At ten thirty, those of us who remained were told that we were no longer needed and that our service was complete for “a whole year”. I had constructed all these worst-case scenarios in my mind about how I would be sequestered for months in a civil case that would stretch on and on and consume my life. I could see my students withering on the vine without a proper guiding force to steer them to their ultimate fourth grade success. I imagined my family missing me as I spent weeks holed up in a downtown hotel, eating room service and steadily growing to hate my fellow jurors. But none of that happened. They set us free. Now I only have memories of the stirring documentary on jury duty they showed us before the first roll call.
I called my boss and asked her what I should do, and she told me to take the rest of the day, since they found someone to cover my class. I give myself a pat on the back for the public service portion of my life, and tell the persistent voice of responsibility to take a hike. I’ll be taking the rest of the day off, thank you very much.
Now what am I going to do with all this time?