Doing your civil duty

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, I was called to jury duty. I had been called to serve when I lived in NY but did not have to go because I was in college a few hours away and was excused. This time was different. I called the night before and my number had been called to report the next day. I had no idea what to expect and everyone kept telling me to say different things, but it was part of being a grown up and I knew I had to go and if I was needed I'd serve.

Arriving bright and early I filed into a room and sat there. And sat there, and sat there. Every 90 minutes we got a 15 minute 'break'. As if sitting there wasn't enough of a break! We were released for an hour and a half lunch at which point I returned to my car so that I could charge my phone, because I'd drained much of my battery sitting there the first 4 hours in the morning. While on lunch there was a bailiff behind me who said that there was a murder trial going on and boy was I glad that I hadn't been called last week and serve on that jury.

Returning after lunch we sat there some more, chatting with the people around me, everyone came from varying backgrounds, a stay-at-home mom, career mom, career husband, and a variety of other people. Finally at about 3 o'clock they called back about half of the people in the room and everyone around me had to go but I was left in the room to hurry-up and wait.

The murder trial mentioned earlier reported a verdict at 3:45, which turned out to be lucky for me because if theyhad finished earlier we probably would have been called into that courtroom for the next case.

Finally at 4:15 we were released for the day. Bored and $12 richer, I served my duties of reporting for jury duty and thankfully don't have to go again for 2 more years. Just another step in adult life.

Have you had to report to jury duty? Did you have to serve on a jury or did you luck out like I did?