Jury duty blues

I had to go in for jury duty yesterday, and like everyone I yelled and cursed when I found out. I made sure I dressed like the aggressive intellectual hipster that I am, and even considered ostentatiously reading Lolita if I had to sit in the courtroom. That would have been effective because it turned out the case was about child molestation. However we all got dismissed about an hour after we got there because the judge had a family emergency. Yay, a family emergency! And there's the horror of the jury duty experience. Thinking about reading Lolita to get out of a child molestation case. Being glad that someone in the judge's family might be hurt or sick or worse. And most of all thinking that not getting further behind at work is more important than helping make sure someone accused of a crime gets justice. Whenever I get dismissed I feel a little sad for all these reasons. I think, wait a minute, I really do want to serve. Someday, but not today.