Voir Dire-

"to speak the truth." today i had jury duty. i had to show up at 9am. i got paid $30. i was able to call in to work and still get paid (i think). after showing up at 9am i sat in this big room with no less than 6 television sets (broadcasting Golden Girls re-runs and then Will & Grace.) people were laughing at this shit at 9am. i read my new TIME magazine (about the unfathomable costs of hurricane Katrina and an article about the war "Are we losing Iraq?") after some time we were all brought into the court room. it was a criminal case. three black males (no older than 20), accompanied with their respective lawyers were sitting in the room. they had been charged with "malicious shooting into an occupied dwelling." some intense questions were asked to the potential jurors, the process of preliminary examination of prospective jurors regarding their qualifications, known as "voir dire". i ended up not getting chosen. the judge asked all of the potential jurors what they did for a living. perhaps, me working in mental health, got me out of serving as a juror in this case. i don't know. they chose 13 jurors out of about 30 of us. after this it was about 1pm and we were all excused, some for lunch and some for the rest of the day. i went home adn enjoyed teh rest of my unexpected day off work, either way it was cool with me really, i think it would have been an interesting case to see. i can't continue to write such autobiographical stories. they're so boring to write. ive got to stop this/