A Matter of Inconvenience

Vacation is officially over. I went back to school today and, so far, I am very excited about this semester. More about that later...

Before I get into the thick of doing what English majors do best (reading and writing ridiculously monstrous essays) I want to share a concept I've been mulling for most of the summer: Jury Duty. You see, I received a jury summons and, well, due to not having any acceptable excuses to get out of it (summer school had just finished), I did my civic (civil?) duty and served jury duty.

I didn't expect much to happen. After all, when I served for the first time a few years ago, all I did was sit in a room all day. I thought it would be the same this time. Silly me. I was called within an hour after I arrived.

And the antics began. My antics. I couldn't help it! I tried to be a good little sheep and follow along and stand quietly in line, or wait quietly while the judge is in chambers, and not challenge the attorneys while they questioned us prospective jurors, but...well...I'm not a sheep. I made jokes like, "Anyone having flashbacks of 3rd grade while standing out here?" (laughing spreads) Or while in the jury box and the judge and attorneys are in chambers I whisper "Cool! The chair swivels! What would happen if we all swivel?" (gasps and giggles and a dirty look from the bailiff). And yes, I did challenge the prosecutor when she asked me a question about making a judgement call, telling the truth, etc... Basically I asked her to clarify the differences between her job and mine. After a few minutes, the judge stopped us. I was sure I would be excused.

I was not. In fact, I was moved up from being an alternate to sitting right smack in the middle! I was definitely on the jury panel. A few of the other jurors teased me that they thought the judge and attorneys liked me. Great (not really). At the end of the day, we were excused and told to return the next morning. I was livid. It was the beginning of July, a few days before my birthday. My daughter was coming to visit and instead of spending time with Jennifer and my little grandson, I would be stuck in court, being a juror on a case that I really didn't want to have anything to do with! As I walked to my car all I could think was:

This is so inconvenient!

My mind went racing. Was it really inconvenient? Was it? Doing my civic (civil?) duty is inconvenient? What does "inconvenient" actually mean?

I'll tell you what it means (because, yes, I did look it up in my beautiful dictionary as soon as I got home that day): Inconvenient: adj. causing trouble, difficulties or discomfort

From a definition point of view, I was not inconvenienced. I wasn't put in harm's way, or suffered any difficulties or discomfort. I still would have been able to celebrate my birthday with my children and spend time with Jennifer and Brandon, just not as much time. Either way, they would have been just fine with spending time with the boys and my mom.

No, there is nothing inconvenient about serving jury duty (ok, ok, I know there are so many people who would disagree, or want to debate the process, etc...It's not perfect, but it's the system we've got and I know it can get quite complicated and I have learned to have the utmost respect for all who are and have been involved with the process so please, let's just leave it at that. Pretty please. By the way, I did feel guilty about my antics.)

You want to know what is inconvenient? Things that truly make life difficult. War is inconvenient. A broken arm is inconvenient. Cancer is inconvenient. Unemployment-the kind where you apply for 15 jobs in 2 days and get 4 rejection emails and no interviews, or the kind where you are over qualified, too expensive, under qualified or too old to get a job, or you find out there are over 100 people applying for the 1 job you're applying for-that's inconvenient. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Serving jury duty was the right thing to do. Period. And in the grand scheme of things, it's only a few days, not my entire life. It kept me from doing things I wanted to do, but it didn't inconvenience me.  I realized how fortunate I was that, when court was done for the day, I could go home and celebrate my birthday.

There is a difference between doing what I want to do and doing what I should do. I should always do what I should do. That may keep me from doing what I want to do, but not being able to do what I want to do is not an inconvenience. Does that make sense?

Here's the kicker: on the 2nd day, the jury was excused from service. Not only did I get to enjoy my daughter's visit, I got paid $15 for sitting and swerving in the jury box. Definitely not an inconvenience.