May 24, 2000
Dear Everyone:
Say Hello to Juror Number Eight.
I got a summons for
Jury Duty back in
February, which would have landed right in the middle of the Great
Conversion, so I requested a postponement.
“Jeannie” says you can almost always get a single postponement,
regardless of your reason (“Grandmother planning senility that week”),
but only one. After that,
they look at you much more closely.
I got the postponement approval with no problem.
The new summons was for yesterday.
I figured the odds were in my favor.
You only have to show up for one day, and if you don’t get picked
that day, you don’t have to come back.
The last time I appeared for Jury Duty, I was out before lunch.
Maybe you only get one “Get Out Before Lunch” card.
Not more than 10 minutes after they finished roll call, they
announced they were starting a computer-generated random selection of 50
names for the first group. I
was in the first group. Once
we got into the courtroom, they started calling names.
Mine was number eight.
Once I got into that seat, I never got out of it.
They kept kicking other people out.
In fact, for a while, every time someone sat to either my right
or my left (numbers seven and nine), they would get kicked.
What was I, some kind of
jinx?
Or was I invisible to the lawyers as soon as I sat down?
Am I the “perfect juror”?
Neither side had anything against me.
Let’s see: Fairly
clean. Reasonably
intelligent (Occupation:
“Information Systems Support Specialist”).
Stable (worked for the same company for 27 years).
Single (no family obligations / no life to speak of).
Why wouldn’t I want to spend two weeks at court?
On the plus side, I get to sleep in a little
because I don’t have to show up for “work” until 8:30-9:00, depending on
the judge’s schedule. I get
90 minutes for lunch. And so
far, we’ve always gotten out by 4:30 or earlier.
I’m still trying to work out the logistics of the new routine.
As for the trial itself, I can’t say anything.
In fact, I’m not even supposed to think about it.
So I try to forget everything as soon as I leave the courthouse,
except for where I parked my car, of course.
More about this in a few weeks.
In the meantime…
After only two and a half years in my townhouse,
the lights are starting to go out.
First, one of the
fluorescent
lights in the kitchen went out.
This was right before my trip to Texas, so I decided to ignore it
until after I got back. The
kitchen faces west and gets the sun all afternoon, so you don’t really
need the lights on a sunny day.
In fact, sometimes I don’t even realize that I’ve forgotten to
turn the lights on.
(Downside: You can also not
realize that you left the lights on when you leave during the day.)
So last weekend, I finally got around to buying a
new light tube at the grocery store during my weekly shopping.
Figuring out how to get the covers off the light panel was quite
easy. Taking the old,
burnt-out light tube out was easy.
Getting the new light tube into the fixture was easy.
Getting the new light tube to light up was impossible.
Last night, since we got out of court early, I
swung by the hardware warehouse and got another light tube, thinking
maybe the grocery-store light wasn’t up to par.
Getting the new-new light tube in was easy.
Getting it to light up was impossible.
Next chance I get, I’ll swing by the hardware warehouse and talk
to the lighting expert to see if he/she can offer any tips on getting
those pesky things to work.
Also in the meantime, one of the lights in the
upstairs bathroom went out.
These are regular incandescent lights and much easier to deal with.
I figured, since all the lights were put in at the same time, if
one went out, the rest are getting ready to go out as well.
So I bought four new bulbs and replaced them all at once.
Suddenly, the bathroom is much brighter than
before. It wasn’t just the
dead bulb that affected things.
I hadn’t realized how much the bulbs had dimmed until I replaced
them. Now there’s just the
downstairs bathroom to worry about.
And, since it’s not used much, those light bulbs may last another
2-½ years. If I’m lucky.
Love, as always,
Pete
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