Jury duty

I'm in the local jury pool for August. First let me be clear: I don't mind having jury duty. It'll be kind of interesting to see that side of the system.

But there are a few ways it really frustrates me.

I'm a planner. I like to have a plan, even if it ends up being thrown out the window. I like the illusion of control a plan gives me.

I can't plan anything this month. Nothing. I have a whole month of limbo, just waiting for my number to be called. I don't know until the night before if I have to go in the next day. Yep, I call each evening at 7 to find out if 13 hours later, at 8 a.m., I have to be at the courthouse. So far I haven't. There has only been one day where jurors have been called.

So 7 p.m. I call. Then I call Chris's mom to let her know. Because I'm lucky I have a mother-in-law who is available on short notice to watch the kids. Finding emergency child care would not be fun. I would hate to have to pay for the privilege of serving on a jury. (The token amount they pay certainly wouldn't cover daycare or a babysitter.)

Here I am left hanging each day for a month. What ever happened to being on call for a week? A week would be easier to work around.

And the worst part is that my day is tied to someone else doing their job. Last night I called the jury message line to find out if my number had been called. The message hadn't been updated. So I called every half hour until 11. And called again when the alarm went off at 7:30 this morning. Luckily there were no jurors required today, but it was a stressful night, all because someone forgot to update the message.

I sure would hate to be held responsible for not appearing because I didn't know I was supposed to. Yep, I have no control over my life this month. And that sucks.