JurySo I got called for jury duty last week. Like most Americans, I didn’t want to go. But I realize that it is a necessary part of our judicial system. The day was quite long and full of small, strange moments. I had to be there at 8 a.m.

Patti dropped me off down at the courthouse, and I turned in my paperwork, got my questionnaire and sat down. There was a sign above the counter where you received your badge. It said, “If you park in the two-story garage before 8:00 a.m., you will be charged.”

It occurred to me that the sign had several significant problems. The first being that if you were already at the check in counter, then it was too late to make sure your car was in the right lot. But even if I was clairvoyant, and knew that the lot was available to me after 8 a.m., I was supposed to check in upstairs before 8 a.m. So I could really only use the lot effectively if I could read the sign in the jurors’ lounge from the street, and I arrived after 8 a.m., which they repeatedly warned us was not acceptable. Great sign.

I served on a Tuesday, and I brought the newspaper to read while waiting for to be called to a courtroom. This was a mistake. The New York Times crossword is easiest on Monday, and then gets progressively harder during the week. Tuesday’s puzzle was not a challenge and I polished it off in about 15 minutes. Then I read the comics. Then the news. Then the opinions. The sports. I realized I was in trouble when I found myself reading a story about tainted chicken meat in Alabama from the back of the business section. I had completely exhausted my reading materials within the first hour.

Luckily, the powers that be provided a movie for us to watch. Unluckily, that movie was RV with Robin Williams. The sound was muted so you had to read subtitles, but I think I followed the complex plot of poop jokes and pratfalls fairly well. I could almost hear brain cells dying every minute it was on the screen. Barry Sonnefield directed this turd-burger. It had Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels and Will Arnett in it, and it stank. I watched anyway.

As I got close to the end of the movie, I started getting nervous. I was afraid they would call me to service and I would not get to finish the crap movie. I suddenly realized I wanted to finish it and was filled with self-loathing and shame — the same emotions the cast and crew experienced when they saw the final cut, I imagine.

I didn’t get called so I started on the next movie, While You Were Sleeping with Sandra Bullock. Not great, but compared to RV, it was like watching the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. After about 10 minutes, they let us loose for a two-hour lunch. Nice gig if you can get it. I was close to Downtown Plaza so I walked over to the mall and called Patti. She and Anya would meet me for lunch.

It took me much less time for me to walk a few blocks than for Patti to drive, find parking and wrangle Anya, so I decided to buy a book. I wanted an insurance policy against the bad movies, I suspected they would show in the afternoon. I hit the B. Dalton Bookseller at the mall. An over-caffeinated, matronly woman pounced on me as I entered and asked if I had a “B. Dalton Membership.” I replied that I did not possess such an item and, furthermore, did not need one. She looked personally hurt.

I found a hardback book I wanted, but it had no sticker. So I returned to the counter to check on the price. The salesclerk gave me a quote of $35, then followed up by helpfully mentioning that it would be only $28 if I had a B. Dalton membership, which I had declined not two minutes earlier. I reiterated that I did not want a membership and mentioned that — even with the discount — I could not justify the price of that book.

I retreated to the paperbacks and found three that appealed to me. I read pretty fast and I wanted to make sure I didn’t run out of book right as they started the Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector screening that afternoon. I selected Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys — using size as my final criterion.

As I took my purchase to the front counter, the Salesbot 3000 decided to shed the last vestiges of her human form and inquired solicitously if I had a B. Dalton membership for the third time in a five-minute span. I declined the membership again and let her get to more important work — such as finding and killing Sarah Connor.

I then walked to the food court to eat lunch with the family unit. Anya spotted me and yelled, “Daddy! Daddy!” and ran over to me looking cuter than any other two year old, ever. I grabber her in my hands and swooped her into the air before depositing her on my shoulder…

…at which point the corner of my copy of Anansi Boys slammed into my forehead above my left eyebrow. It hurt. A lot. I told Patti that it hurt. She laughed a little at my misfortune. Then I started bleeding. That’s right: I managed to injure myself to the point of drawing blood with a paperback book. In retrospect, choosing my reading material based on size was not such a good idea.

So I got to finish my lunch clutching a bloody napkin to my head, wondering how many people saw me do this to myself, and if they told their friends, and if those friends had blogs with titles like, Dumb People I Have Seen.

I returned to the courthouse and was immediately called to a specific courtroom. Things were looking up. The case was three young black men who were accused of robbing a check-cashing place, which is the exact opposite of how the system is designed to work. The judge asked if anyone had reasons that they could not serve. This emptied about two-thirds of the room. Then he started listing ways that you might be biased and asked if anyone thought they would not be able to judge fairly. For example, he said if you were robbed in a similar situation, perhaps that would make it difficult for you to remain unemotional.

The one question he asked that caught my ear was, “Do you not like black people?” Now, the defendants were black, but so were the judge and a lot of the other people in the courtroom. The juror sitting right next to me was a pregnant black woman, and we started talking about who in their right mind would admit to being a racist right now. I made a friend. We killed time by poking a little fun at some of the other jurors as they came up with lame excuses to avoid serving.

Then the attorneys wanted to have a pow-wow with the judge, so he told all the prospective jurors to leave. I stood up, but my new friend did not. I told her we had to leave. She said she did not. I thought maybe she didn’t hear the judge. She said she did, but she didn’t have to leave. I saw her later, as I waited in the hallway. She was actually the pregnant girlfriend of one of the defendants.

Now I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that — as a prospective juror — I shouldn’t have been getting chatty-chatty with the accused’s baby-momma. I picked a new seat when we went back in. Nothing personal.

They winnowed down the jury pool — replacing people as they were excused. Until there were just three of us left in the gallery. They announced that they had their jury. I never even got to turn in my questionnaire where I admitted to having worked at the Highway Patrol. It was a bit of a let down.

This happened last Tuesday, but I still bear the scars of the day’s events. The literary-induced cut above my eyebrow is slowly healing but I suspect the emotional scars of watching RV will take much longer to fade.