Crenellated Flotsam

Last night I got a thrill when a woman told me she wanted me. Okay, it was a recording, and she just wanted me for jury duty, but I take whatever little successes come my way.

So this morning, bright and early, I worried over what to wear and took an uneventful bus ride to the courthouse to follow her command. There was a long line of people waiting to enter the building and go through the metal detector, so I lingered a bit, hoping to be behind someone attractive and interesting and ended up settling for someone about like me. After meandering along for fifteen or twenty minutes, I was at the door when a man about my age in a suit came out of nowhere and took a spot right in front of me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, a bit taken aback. “Did you just cut in front of me?” As you can tell, I was feeling a bit bold.
He had the decency to look a bit sheepish before replying, “I’m a lawyer.”
“I’m a human,” I said, which was as cutting as I could come up with on a moment’s notice. I have, since then, come up with many, better responses, my favorite being “Why don’t you take the special lawyer’s entrance, then?” to which he’d tell me there isn’t one. “Oh,” I’d say, “I guess you’re not as entitled as you think.”

Anyway, I entered before he did and, when I looked back, he wasn’t behind me, either. Maybe others were equally unimpressed.

So I got to the jury pool waiting room and was only ten minutes late. Since nothing happened until 9:00, I’m thinking it’s one of those “we say 8:30 so you’ll be here by 9:00″ things, which annoy me no end. Around nine one of the women manning the place came out and gave a boring speech, letting us know that there looked to be two or three panels called out that day and promising us a judge would be by to talk with us soon. If we were lucky, she said, there was a sixty percent chance we wouldn’t be called and would be excused around four, and be done with jury service for the next year.

The judge came, talked, and left. After over an hour of reading magazines, we were given a break, and then it was another hour or so before we were set off on a two hour lunch. I was halfway through my magazine by this time, some trade publication for grocers, and found a place that served a decent fried rice. It would have been better had I been able to get pork fried rice, but I had to settle for beef.

After lunch, I finished the magazine and discovered that in the past few hours all of the Internet capable computers had broken (they all had that “system drive error” notice, so I wondered who was trying to boot from a floppy). I stood my ground and refused to pay $12 for a computer for a day, or even $5.00 for an hour’s browsing, and returned to my magazine.

Then, we all got evacuated from the building and descended eight flights of stairs.

The streets were filled with police and sherriffs, and two bomb squad vans were parked right out front. I’m not sure if it was a bomb threat (we were never told), or if those vans just get called out whenever any emergency situation occurs, but we all gathered outside before being told to move down the block.

I found the woman who was in charge of us in the jury waiting room and told her I hoped this wouldn’t interfere with my scheduled afternoon break. She said, but not officially, we should probably all just go home. It was evident that was her desire, but instead of doing that, the cops all told us to move another block away.

Then, another.

I was still hanging around her, and she told me this was the farthest she’d ever been evacuated. I felt pretty proud to be part of this, but the other woman who worked with her pointed that, at other times, they’d also had helicopters.

We had no helicopters.

We eventually got back in, and an hour later, without anyone, ever, being called to serve on a jury, we were dismissed. It was nearly five.

I made my way to a bus stop and about fifteen minutes later my bus came by. I stood under the sign, waved at the driver, and was rewarded by seeing him return my wave with one of his own while he drove right by. Sweet. I was left to contemplate the vagaries of our judicial system while staring at a chain link fence completely covered with flowering bougainvillea. They were exploding with color, but I’m not sure what that maroonish color is so I’ll call it color X.

Nearly half an hour later another bus came by and this one was kind enough to stop.

We’ll see what happens next year.

You may not be able to tell by looking, but I’m still busy with jury duty. It’s fairly obvious that I’m being saved up for a really big case, maybe one with that Lousiana Congressman or someone who was in charge of Fanny Mae. In any case, after three days they’ve yet to find a suitable trial, one demanding my many areas of expertise.

Today, though, I became a bit sad. While it’s true that every day I realize just how lucky I’ve been and how many wonderful things have happened, and continue to happen, to me, I had a stunning blow while perusing the aisles of the grocery store. Over near the bakery, I was stricken to my core.

For sale there were hotdog buns, which in and of itself isn’t surprising, but one of the packages proclaimed the buns to be “home style.”

My mother, for all her many and varied cooking skills (a term I use as broadly as possible) never once made homemade hot dog buns. Nor, for that matter, hamburger buns. I thing the closest may have been the occasional biscuits, but I can’t imagine having a hot dog in a biscuit.

These must have come from someone else’s home.

Today I may look different, but there’s a reason for it: I’m working, only, well, not really.

Jury duty, my civic resonsibility, begins today, and it began with a resounding thud. Here I am, all eager to be paid for my opinions, and I’m not wanted. Someone, with her or his hopes and future on the line, is as of this moment squirming in a chair while attorneys laugh and act all businesslike.

This person, faced with a “jury of his peers,” will look in vain for me, because the court’s (I assume) are saving me up for a bigger, more involved case, later this week.

I can hardly wait.

I’ve been practicing looking thoughtful and attentive, but I’m as sad as always that the American Justice System doesn’t allow the jurors to ask any questions. That’s where I’d really shine. We can’t permit that sort of thing, maybe because law is too complicated or too special to be practiced by just anyone, and us laypeople don’t fully grasp the intricacies of evidence. It must be something like that.

Anyway, I have my juror number and phone number to call, and later tonight I’ll see if my services are needed tomorrow. The suspense, as you can imagine, is palpable, but the good news is it’s raining this morning so I was able to avoid showing up soaking wet.

Now to get back to answering a week’s worth of e-mails. The best news is that the cat I was watching was taken to the vet and the x-rays were negative. For some reason, she isn’t eating, and it was a relief to know it wasn’t my doing.

Yesterday I went to a delightful late breakfast, as long as you consider the company I had, which overshadowed the food a hundredfold. I had a Belgian style waffle, which was similar to every other waffle I’ve eaten and differed only in being served with clarified butter.

I’m not sure what that’s about, but my hunch is either they’re not certain their waffles will be warm enough to melt butter or clarified is, somehow, cheaper. Maybe it’s supposed to be fancier, I just don’t know.

In addition to the above-mentioned company, this late breakfast was noteworthy because of the location, a genuine 1950s coffee shop, as well as our decision to eat on the “patio.” I use the term loosely, the same way Pann’s must. What passes for a patio for many of the LA eating establishments is no more than a section of sidewalk, hermetically sealed in plastic and overheated by those huge propane devices.

It would be funny if it weren’t such a sad commentary on 21st century humanity.

Los Angeles may be many things, but clementis one of the more used words to describe our temperature. This year we had a brief battle with sub-fifty degree nights, only to emerge safely. It may not yet be summertime temperatures, but no one would complain about being outside, not unless you asked those eating on patios or driving.

The cars on the road were all sealed up, all the residents isolated with the temperature safely under their car’s control, and the other patrons at Panns were all protected from even the slightest breeze by thick plastic curtains, which served to intensify the sounds of our fellow diners.

My parents, at one time, poured the thinnest possible covering of concrete on the ground just outside the back door, This we called the patio, and it was open to the elements and supported a barbecue and not much else. I’m not sure what the dictionary definition of a patio is, but I think it carries with it some notion of being outside, not merely extending the indoor experience to an adjoining paved area.

This brunch didn’t feature any music, only the welcome sound of conversation.