beulahbondo's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm too sexy for this court

While I was at jury duty today someone broke into my apartment and stole my postage stamps...on the bright side, my laptop hiding place works, and I was not seated on the jury for the murder case.

It's true! My case was one of the biggies. Murder one. A young man is being tried for shooting and killing a "well-known athlete from Lowell" two years ago. "Who did he play for?" I whispered to the woman next to me. "I think he was in high school," she replied. Strange that that was how the judge identified the deceased.

So out of a 80-person jury pool, 79 of us were white. How'd that happen? The defendant, Mr. Diaz, or "Mr. Dye-az" as his defender called him, is not white. So the lawyers went through all their challenges and used their very last one on me, Juror 8-2.

I don't know why I was excused, but I do know this: The defense attorney giggled as I approached the bench for my little conference with the judge (who I was secretly a little hot for, as he resembled Mel from the Dick Van Dyke Show, only with a dramatically bigger nose). Maybe she giggled because I was twice as tall as she was, or because I was yet another Cantabrigian sent 30 miles away to Lowell Superior Court. At any rate, the judge seated me in the jury box (comfy!) but Giggles (or the prosecutor, really, I don't know) had me sent away in the last round of challenges. Tomorrow they'll try again for a more racially mixed jury. Or so I was encouraged not to infer.

So after five hours in the courthouse, and its very confining atmosphere and cops telling you where to stand, I get home to find a hole where my deadbolt used to be. When the police officer came, he said, "Did you check your closets? Are you sure no one's hiding in here?" Oh wow. I hadn't even thought of that. "Go check under your bed," he said. "Me? You're the one with the gun!" He said to check anyway. The only thing apparently missing is that book of stamps, and possibly a ring that I can't find, but I hid a lot of stuff when I sublet the place. My belongings must be baffling to the average burglar, but at least they didn't take my Ashford and Simpson t-shirt, or my table loom, or my Beatles DVDs, or my anti-depressants.