I feel like the nerd wanting desperately to be picked for a dodgeball team… except in this case it’s jury duty. Today should have been my first day to report to the Stanley Mosk courthouse on Hill Street downtown. I got my notification around Christmas and went through the motions to register.
Given my present unemployment sitch, for once I was actually looking forward to the process and was even hoping to get on a jury. But when I dutifully — some might say eagerly — called this weekend and plugged in my ID number and PIN I was told my services weren’t needed.
“But you don’t understand, I want to be a juror!” I yelled at the recorded voice, but all it could give me in consolation was that tomorrow was another day and I should call back after 5 p.m. today to see if I could come play then.
Sigh.
There’s the school of thought that cautions us to be careful for what we wish, and I may very well be called on to be a part of tomorrow’s pool or Wednesday’s or Thursday’s or Friday’s. But I’m cool with that. I want this new discovery. There was just something about getting it started today — Monday — that seemed so appealing. Kind of like a work week, maybe. I vaguely remember what those were like.
Anyway, I think part of the juror registration process should include a 0-to-9 scale in which prospective panelists are asked to guage how interested they are in being jurors (0 being none and 9 being gung-ho). Certainly the vast majority of citizens would punch in a zero, but I’d bet there are people like me — however few — who would actually punch the niner and welcome the opportunity. At least then those people could be given priority and that could help depopulate the pool of some people who object to the service or truly have better things to do with their time.
Doesn’t it seem that a jury made up of more peers wanting to be empaneled would be a good thing?
UPDATE (6:08 p.m.): I’m in! Checking just now I found I have to report bright and early Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. Cool!
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