Jury Duty and the Terrors Thereof

I had jury duty last week. A terrifying experience.

Now, I've had jury duty before ... have endured the long hours of boredom, the uncomfortable benches, the pencil-shaving smell of the courthouse, and the not-exactly-disappointment of being bumped out of the selection pool. But I have never had an experience quite like this one.

I got called for a criminal case and the judge began her series of questions to separate the sheep from the goats. What a lot of goats! If that jury pool was a cross-section of the citizenry of Oklahoma City, it was grim indeed. Fully a third of them had DUIs. There were a handful of possessions. But those were tame compared to what came up as the process ground on.

First there was the woman who "forgot all about" her conviction for embezzlement. Then there was the guy who told the judge about his assault charges, but failed to mention the drive-by shooting charges, and the 23-year-old who had four larceny charges before she was 18. And that was just the perps. There was a litany of victims, as well.

There was the man whose wife had been "brutally raped, resulting in the need for a full hysterectomy" 30 years ago. The girl whose grandmother was tied up and robbed just last week. The woman whose husband had been jailed for an unnamed sex offense. The girl whose mother in law robbed a bank. My god! Who are these people???

The jury was never selected because of a mistrial on a technical foul-up on the part of the clerk or bailiff. But before she released us, the judge let us ask some questions and held us in the courtroom chatting for awhile. I asked if this was typical of the process and was relieved to hear her say emphatically "No! No not at all. We've had everything but a spotted pig in this courtroom today."

I'm pretty sure we had the spotted pig, too.

It reminds me of the words of wisdom given to me by my old neighbor, King, many years ago. He told me I should keep my screen door locked if I was going to leave the door open when I was not in the front of the house. "Girl, I could be anyone!" He said. I told him, "King, you'd have to be crazy to come in here with all these dogs in the house!" At the time I had four big dogs, all lounging in the front room. King just nodded his head vigorously and told me "They out there. I could name you five I went to school with."

Clearly, King was right. They out there.

Giant Angels

On Friday I had a meeting with a sales rep. Regular guy. Middle-aged, balding, carrying a briefcase, trying to sell me advertising. We had a nice meeting and some pleasant chit chat and I told him a little about the new Paleozoic gallery opening up.

Then he said that he recently picked up a book of Bible stories and there was one he had forgotten about a race of giants created when human women "mated" with angels. And he asked me "Now wouldn't it be amazing to find something like that?"

I just looked at him for a second. Here I'd been having this conversation with this guy, believing he was sane and normal. Now this. A race of giant angels. I said "That would be quite a scientific discovery."

Generally, in my line of work, you learn to be diplomatic about these things. Especially when someone mentions the bible. When you work in a natural history museum, the minute someone brings up the bible you know they are about to say something outrageous: ask you if the dinosaurs were killed in the flood, or if you've found any dinosaurs with human skeletons inside them, or ask you to defend evolution, the basis of all biological study. So as soon as the guy said "Bible stories" I knew it was coming. But the race of giant angels was a new one.

I'm amazed at what people will believe, on absolutely no authority other than the church. I don't get it. I don't know why religious faith and the real world have to be so separated.

Well, I won't get off on that subject. But it was an interesting experience.

Yesterday we had lunch with Gray's mom, who was in town for the wedding of the daughter of one of her friends. We hadn't seen her in over a year. Not since the big fight last Christmas. I hadn't spoken to her in all that time until about a month ago when she apologized to me over the phone. Two words: "I'm sorry." that's really all it took. I had to wait a year for it.

The night before she did so, I had had a dream in which she died without us ever making up. It was a very sad dream because she had died without seeing Grayson again, and without him ever again having seen her. After the dream, I knew it was time for us to make up. And the next day she called and said she was sorry.

The lunch went fine. We spent about three hours together and then came home. I was worn out from being nice, but it went well. I feel like I have to be so careful in what I say. I must speak literally and cautiously, not make any jokes that could be misconstrued. Always be positive and complimentary about everyone. Makes me realize how much I rely on sarcastic humor to keep up my end of the conversation. Though really I think most of my jibes are at myself.

Anyway, it was good to get that first meeting over with. Things will never be as easy as they once were, I think. At least not for me. But at least we are speaking.

There's Nemo

 My kitty's back

I know I never mentioned my kitty being gone, but I'll mention here how relieved I am that he is back. Nemo got out the front door on New Year's Eve and was missing until Saturday when Gray discovered him skulking around the airconditioners in the back yard.  I just grabbed him and cried into his fur.  That fat lazy bastard. I love that cat.