Jury Duty

Who would have guessed...we're in Fresno for all of 3 months and I get stupid Jury duty.  I do feel as though my PO Box was selected on purpose and not "at random" as stated by the form which I found inside lovely box number 46.  The previous apartment attendant has failed to change his forwarding address seeing as though he also got jury duty.

While I'm on the subject previous stated resident must have had 3,4, or 27 other people living here because we get their "un-forwarded" mail on a daily basis, usually of which is addressed to different people.  Which is quite aggravating.  The reason so.. I can't just dump it back in the "send mail" slot because then the lovely postal worker just circles it 50 times in dark black ink and shoves it back in my box.  I am more than happy to walk a whopping 50 steps to take it to the office, however the office is probably closed.  Reluctantly I stomp back to my lovely abode trying to open my mail, while not getting a paper cut, juggling my keys, dropping said previous tenants mail, hit by a car or stepping in dog poo.  Come to think of it .. maybe it would be best if I just got inside before I opened the mail.  Anyway, typically it takes 4 or 5 trips to the office before the door is ever unlocked.  Of course by this time I have 2 hands full of mail and some bystander probably things I've been hoarding mail like a crazy person.

Ok, so back to my jury duty experience.  So to get to the actual building I had jury duty in it was quite a journey.  I drove my car "downtown" which is in no way somewhere you WANT to be..EVER.  Of course, on this day said trolley was running late and it was filled about 10 people over capacity.  Took an overstuffed trolley, because Fresno's judicial system is awesome and they have jury duty in something like 3 different buildings.  By the time trolley gets to my stop I've been tossed-and-turned, jiggled from side-to-side, and my keister is numb from landing so gracefully on the luxurious wooden seat due to the wonderful Pothole Bureau of the California road department.  Because the trolley was late and super stuffed we all look like a herd of cattle going through the front doors of the judicial building.  Here we must go through a metal detector and scanner, because it's Fresno and you know somebody's packing.. ha ha. 

As I enter this lovely jury duty selection room there's like 200 people in here already, so finding a seat is difficult.  Finally my keister has something more luxurious to rest on.. a nice cheap plastic chair, and over my head 5 (yes, FIVE) 52" flat screen tv's with a running "Welcome to Jury Duty Selection" presentation.  Really, 5 NEW flat screen tv's.. no wonder California is in debt!!  After the short tv slide show this snobby lady got up and told us about what to expect.  It was all a blur until I heard "This case is to last until Feb 22"  I was like "Holy Cow," you could start to hear the shuffle and murmurs inside the technologically advanced jury duty selection room.  Snobby court lady then gave a list of reasons why you could be excused from jury duty...needless to say thank goodness I already bought my ticket to "The Big Event"..or else I'd have to stay.  On another note my future jury duty is already scheduled, however I'm sure it will be shorter than 3 weeks.

Needless to say my first jury duty experience has left much to be desired for.  Definitely more to come at the end of April on what jury duty is really like.