Jury Duty really stresses me out.  Not because I hate doing it, but I just hate the whole “if I’m late, get lost, make a mistake, etc. I could get held in Contempt of Court” part.  This means that I lay everything out meticulously the night before, review my directions, get irritable, make contingency plans, and work myself up the night before.

Poor Joey.

Yesterday morning, I was in aflurry.  We got ready, left the house at the normal time and I dropped Joey off at DTS.  I went to Starbucks where I spent $5 on caffeine and made my way to the courthouse, 30 minutes early.

You just never know.

Amazingly, I found the courthouse without incident.  This is highly abnormal for me, because I have the rare skill of getting lost in familiar places.  When Joey and I were first married and we’d drive around Des Moines to go visit his family members, I’d repeatedly say, “HEY!  Joey, I’ve been lost here before!”

He mostly just laughs at me.

But yesterday, I found the courthouse, parked in the area very clearly marked “JURY AND VISITOR PARKING”, paid my $4 and hoofed it inside.  Where I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  By noon I had read 200 pates of Nineteen Minutes.  And if it hadn’t been for the several breaks to go through jury selection I could have read more.  (I read irritatingly fast.)

But guess what.

THEY PICKED ME.

And it was a….a….prostitutioncase.

I was the last one picked, just like in Dodgeball or kickball (or any other stupid game involving flying balls – I am always the last one picked).  There I was, getting all excited, thinking that I could go home and not have to sit on the jury…when the bailiff read:

“Jenna…Jenna….Wooooosss”

“That’s me,” I interrupted, standing.  I thought I’d save him from completely butchering my last name.

I’ll spare you the gory details, but I definitely heard more extremely bad words yesterday between the hours of 1 and 6 than I ever intentionally hear in a month.

We convicted the dude.  I felt bad for him, he looked really shell-shocked when we read the verdict, but that’s what you get, buster.

We deliberated for half an hour and I finally got out of the courthouse at 6:00 p.m. Poor Joey had been waiting for me to pick him up for the last hour.  I was exceptionally glad to see him.

“I got paid $6 for my service today,” I said, glumly.  “And I was there for 10 hours.”

“Woah, that’s $0.75 an hour!” Joey figured.

“That doesn’t even pay for the awful lunch I had!” I wailed.  Since the judge hadn’t let us go to lunch until almost 1, most of the things in the cafeteria downstairs were closed.  I had to get some Chinese, which didn’t taste good and sat even harder, that cost $7.15.  Add to that my $4 parking and $5 Starbucks splurge, it was an expensive day for Jenna Woestman.

We went home, packed up our blanket and Henry’s stake and went over to the green where we laid on the grass and read books.  A perfect end to a stressful day, really.  We sat there for an hour…Joey fell asleep and I read another 100 pages in Nineteen Minutes while Henry drank water out of my flip-flop, which I had converted into a travel water dish for him, and tried to flirt with other dogs.

Thankfully we had remembered bug spray (Joey gets these amazing welts from mosquitos, I’ve never seen the like) and we walked home bug-bite-free!  “Tomorrow’s Friday,” Joey yawned.

“It is?” I asked.  I thought tomorrow was Thursday, but I guess that was really today.

The plan for Friday night.  Go see Speed Racer at the crime-ridden dollar theatre in Garland.

OH MY GOSH, POKE MY EYE OUT.

I am totally down with the crime-ridden dollar theatre because it’s cheap and educational (Joey and I are really straight-laced, so it’s good for us to see four cop cars outside the theatre when we leave movies on a Friday night), but I just don’t wanna see Speed Racer.  This is what I get for agreeing to see it when it hit the dollar theatre…

Hey, it couldn’t be any more droll than Jury Duty, right?