Summoned

Last night I called the number as instructed on my Alameda County jury summons expecting to hear no jurors needed. What a surprise when the voice said I was to report, only I was not to report to the courthouse just down the street I was to report to the courthouse twenty miles away. Not exactly what I had in mind for jury duty. As people started filing in the Jury Administrator (who knew there was such a job?) explained that they had requested a large pool of jurors today and many were called from Oakland area. So we sat in blue gray plastic chairs around small round tables, reading books, magazines, newspapers, a few people with laptops lucky enough to get a seat by a plug, not much to look at except each other and the forlorn Christmas tree in the corner, which reportedly never gets taken down. Eventually roll was called and half the room lucky enough to have their names called filed out to the courtroom, the excitement, the questioning. The rest of us were told to wait. So we did, patiently for hours. Eventually we were given a break, then a lunch break, then an afternoon break. I read the New Yorker, and the newspaper, played Tetris on my phone until the battery wore down, wished I'd brought a computer or an iPod, hardly anybody spoke. Finally late in the afternoon the judge came in. She thanked us for coming and acknowledged the frustration we were all feeling at having to sit and wait while all the action was going on in a different room. But she said it was important that we came, it was a case where they weren't sure a jury could be picked from the original pool and so she hadn't been able to let us go. Now that the jury was picked we were free to leave, time served for one year. And with that the day seemed like not such a waste, because just maybe we were needed. For me and my Law and Order dreams I'll just have to wait 'til next year.