free at last!

so my jury duty adventure is over as of 4:15 p.m. today. i apologize in advance if any of you are sick of my courtroom tales but i know i have at least one fan of these stories so i decided to finish up the set.

we had a full day in court today. randomly, one of my GH co-workers was on the case with me, so for our 90 minute lunch break we went back to the office to do some work. my motive for going there was to grab some stuff to be better prepared to work from home so i wouldn't need to go back to the office again till it was all done, but in retrospect i really should have driven to tito's for lunch. boo.

key learnings from today:

a. same guy. SAME PANTS.

b. the burping guy actually ended up to be pretty cool -- we are friends now, me and juror #11. (it's funny how you never learn anyone's actual names.) he's a film exec who produced dan in real life and some other stuff. he was a nice guy.

c. i made another new friend who rode w/ me & the co-worker up to the office so she could go to the library. she's a PA for criminal minds on cbs. she loves jane austen and wine.

d. various excuses stated for being a "non-drinker" (there were surprisingly more of these today):
- i don't like the smell
- my parents never drank so i don't drink
- health reasons and because both my parents were alcoholics
- religious beliefs (that would be me)
- never had an interest

e. one excuse stated for being a "non-driver" (i have no idea how this person survives in los angeles):
- i never took the time or had an interest to learn to drive

we went back into the courtroom for more "voir dire," my new word of the week. still no one was dismissed. then they put us on break for 30 minutes so the judge could take care of some other stuff, but in court talk 30 minutes actually means an hour and 15 minutes so i sat on the hard marble floor and chit-chatted about how they should let us all go home. then it was back to the courtroom and they finalllllly started excusing people, one by one.

because of how we had been originally arranged, i was already sitting in the jury box. this made me nervous because the defense attorney kept saying "the defense is fine with the jury as it stands" when they were allowed to release people. luckily for me the prosecutor was on a rampage and kept dismissing people like crazy. i was one of the last people to be dismissed. i guess i wasn't unbiased enough, being a non-drinker and all :)

(and in case you're wondering, the kid with the dead parents got excused as well. i wanted to hug him when he left.)

the burp guy, the PA girl and the co-worker all had to stay on the jury. i went back upstairs, turned in my badge, got my certificate of completion (a check for a whopping $30 + mileage is coming my way in two weeks) and got the heck out. and that is the end of my civic duty, for the next year at least. i must say i was slightly dreading being put on the jury, but now that i'm done i'm a little sad that i don't get to see the whole thing through. luckily my little "inside source" friends can keep me posted.

now it's back to work...touring hotels in newport beach & laguna beach tomorrow. and the wisdom teeth removal is still on for next week! guess my fun couple of days off was good while it lasted.