Final Deliberations

Jury Duty is the bane of many a man’s existence, something nobody wants to do.

Think about it: In jury duty you are forcefully removed from your comfortable, secure, life, and then unceremoniously thrust into solving the situations of strangers.

In any other situation that would be called eavesdropping but in this instance they call it your civic duty.

Jury Duty is truly the great equalizer. Everyone has to do it, and no ones likes it. That was the attitude I had when I began my adventures in jury duty.

I was fully expecting to join the ranks of embittered jurors, those who had been abducted by the county and forced to decide on an issue where they were neither qualified nor competent. To have to spend days upon days rotting away in a room filled with your peers who look remarkably like strangers. To do something I didn’t want to do, but had to do, out of some ambiguous duty.

I was fully expecting to be said person. But I’m happy to say I wasn’t.

After a long, drawn-out trial the jury came back with a unanimous decision: I had enjoyed myself.

I don’t know why but I did. I don’t know if it was the nice people, the friendly atmosphere, my quiet afternoons with Newt, or some combination of them all.

But I think what I most enjoyed about the experience was that it was just that: an experience. I was thrust into a world that I had preconceived notions about, only to discover there was much more to it then I had ever imagined.

So to whoever reads this I offer some advice. If you get a jury summons in the mail, don’t throw it away.

First, because you’ll go to jail if you do.

But secondly, because you really should do it.

It may be out of your way, it may be inconvenient, but you’ll learn something from it. You may learn something about yourself, you may learn something about your country, but you will almost certainly learn about something.

And at the end of the day, when it that a bad thing?

So go ahead. Do your civic duty. Serve on a jury. Get to know your peers. Make the world a better place.

Besides, who needs to go to some tropical paradise on Spring Break anyway?