What. Are. The. Freakin’. Odds?!??!

Again.  What. Are. The. Freakin’. Odds?!??! 

So, as you may or may not know, I was selected for jury duty.  I was all excited, I’ve been waiting to serve on a jury since I was 18!!!

I will leave out all the boring parts of the day.  And it was very boring. I thought I was going to cry from being so bored.  But I didn’t cry.  (yay me!)

I will leave out the parts of the day that lead up to the moment I knew what trial they were picking  jurors for, because, again, it’s all so very boring.

I will start with when 124 of us walked into the court room and I sat on the first bench directly behind the prosecutors table and there she sat at the defendants table.  Her hair right there for me to pull it if I wanted. 

I wrote a post in 2008 about a mom that left her baby in the car in July (it’s July right now and hot as hell, just like back then in case you forgot what month it is).  This mom left her baby in the car for six hours while she went out drinking from 10 in the morning to until 4 or so in the afternoon.  In the car, in July.  A three month old baby. 

And there she sat and I was a possible juror suspect.

No. Freakin’. Way. 

I wasn’t called to the jury box and was never interviewed for the jury which means that I had to go back this morning and not get called again for another jury.  1/2 day wasted.  Yesterday was a full day and I left with the worst headache in my life. 

I saw her yesterday and could not believe that I was sitting so close to something…. something so… I just don’t have the words- I could not wrap my mind around that I was sitting so close to her.  I tried to mentally recall the post that I had written and had long forgot about. I tried to remember correctly, “Is this that case? It can’t be? What are the odds? What did write again? What was all said about this before?” My mind went in every direction. I was trying to listen to the judge, lawyers and all I could really think about is the three month baby girl and how the heat gets to me in my car when I first get in.  How do you forget your baby?

At one point in time, one of the lawyers said something that had everyone do one of those laughs when you laugh at something that isn’t terribly funny, but you laugh harder than normal just to relive the tension in the room- that kind of laugh.  Everyone in the room smiled and laugh- including her.  An anger instantly came over me. I stopped laughing and I’m sure I gave her my evil eye, not that she turned to look at me, but I couldn’t help but stare at her throughout the day.  Well, she laughed and I thought, “You have no right to laugh ever again in life!” 

And then at one point, she poured some water into her white styrofoam cup from the pitcher that sat on her table.  I thought, “Bet your three month old baby would have liked some water that day.”  Here we all were, because of her.  Not able to drink water ourselves, not able to get up and go pee, we could do nothing. We had to sit and listen forever in a day while 14  out of the 124 of us were questioned to see if they could sit on the jury. 

I knew there was no way my name was going to be called to be placed in the jury box, it just wasn’t going to happen- I had that vibe that it just wasn’t going to happen and I would not have to expose my blog and the post that I thought I had written about her and her baby.  And after reading her defense in today’s paper, there is no doubt  this lady is guilty as guilty can be. 

So, I’m still “on call” for jury duty until the end of next week.  I still have to call every day and if there is a trial case set for the next day, I have to show up and see if I get called to the jury box and requested to stay on the jury.  We shall see what I end up with, if anything.  As a wannabe juror, the holy grail would be some high profile murder case that will one day end up on Dateline and I, as a juror, would be interviewed at the end of the show as to why I voted the way I did, that would be the ultimate, right?  But a baby killer trial?  Yeah, I’ll pass.