ahh... the joys of trying to get out of jury duty.

Way back in June last year, my parents got a little notice in the mail from the Court Administration of Hennepin County. Out of everyone in the county and amongst many others, i was selected to serve Jury Duty. Well, at the time i couldn't do such a thing since i was living in Madison and working 50 ish hours a week. I couldn't really postpone it to the immediate future either because i was going off to Japan, which is also not near downtown Minneapolis.

I called up the jury office and said such things and they asked when i could serve jury duty within the next six months. I said, "oh i dunno... how about the second week in January or something like that.." and thus it was written.

I got back from Japan and putzed around for a while. The Thursday before i was moving down to Madison to start my new job, my mom reminds me that i had Jury duty on Monday... which i had completely forgot about. I probably would've paid more attention to it, had i no plans to try and get out of it again. So i'm all like, "whatever.. i'll call 'em up tomorrow and tell i can't go. wheee."

Tomorrow came; i had the day off. I called them up later in the afternoon to continue my streak of lazy. "i'm sorry," i say, "but i can't make it in on Monday.. i'm.. uh... moving down to Madison this weekend and start my job Monday." Though, this was a bit of a lie. The monday of my jury duty was January 8th, and the monday of starting my job was January 15th. "you can't come in on Monday..? This is a little short notice. I mean.. we'll need some kind of proof... and... you haven't even sent in your questionnaire. can you fax us something that proves you start on Monday?" "uhhh... no i can't do that because i don't have any of that with me.. and blah blah blah." "well can you fax us something on Monday morning when you're at your job?" "....k"

So... now i was in a bit of a pickle. Caught in a lie to the court, it would seem. Well, first thing i did was go to their website and fill out that questionnaire. And.. i planned on going downtown on Monday and saying something like, "oh crap... i got the weeks messed up. i actually start next week 'n stuff. nurrr."

Bright and Early, Monday morning, i skipped out of Pharmacy work pretty early, and went downtown to get their at 9am. I looked all over the letter and figured that 9am was when i was supposed to be there. I got to the court building, went where i was supposed to and found nothing. It was pretty empty. All the doors were closed and looked like nothing was going on. I walked around the building a little bit and asked information where to go. They sent me right back to where i was. There's a big sign that says, "Jury Administration" with an arrow pointing to the door. I got closer and heard some voices inside. The door was opened a crack, so i poked my head in and saw a large auditorium filled with about 200 people listening to a lecturer.
"crap.. am i late, or something?" i thought. I took a look at my letter a little more closely and saw that i was ACTUALLY supposed to get there at 8:15am. "Well shit.. 45 minutes late," i thought, "Screw this.. i'm taking off. i told 'em i wasn't going to be here anyways." I got back and emailed Bryan at my job about that proof of employment.

At this point i figured.. they have the fax about my employment, and i didn't show up, which i told them i wasn't. eh, i should be fine. No need to call them and have everything sorted out. They can call me if they have any problems... Though, i guess i'll need to get citizenship to Wisconsin to prove i live there.. sigh.

Well, on Wednesday i got a new piece of mail from the Court Administration of Hennepin County. "This should be interesting..." i thought, "probably some letter bitching about my absence downtown." As luck would have it, it was the exact opposite of that scenario.

The letter stated that after reviewing my questionnaire i had completed, Hennepin County would not need my services for Jury Duty. So, i guess all that running around was really all for not. huzzah. now i don't need to get a Wisconsin Driver's license until i move somewhere less temporary.

My little brother told me something that day that he heard from some standup comedian.  "There's no way i'd ever commit some huge crime because it puts my life in the hands of 12 people not smart enough to get out of Jury duty."