I registered to vote in NY because I’m an adult and I value my civic duty. Of course, with my luck that also means that I would immediately get called for jury duty.

Jury duty in Manhattan is a minimum two day process. Having never served on a jury before I didn’t really know what to expect, so I showed up to day 1 armed with two magazines. By 9:30 I was bored out of my mind and ready to kill myself. Thankfully they let us out at mid-day because there’s no way I would have made it through the entire day. Day 2 on the other hand, I came prepared. NYC has free wifi so I brought my laptop and tried to get some work done. Of course once I really got started, I got selected for a supreme court case. Then it was 4 hours of lawyers explaining what malpractice is. It was painful, but given some of the questions and responses that people were giving, I’m amazed that any cases ever get settled. It’s situations like this that serve as a painful reminder that there are a lot of stupid people in the world. And the really crazy part of all of this is who actually got selected for the jury; I was really surprised at who was excluded. I’m sure there’s a valid reason for why they let some jurors go, but I can’t explain it.

I think I was let go not for my own statements, but rather for a statement that another potential juror made while I was in the room. I’m pretty sure he ‘biased’ all of us, I guess I should thank him. Otherwise I would be stuck in a weeklong trial as an alternate where I would likely be let go after I sat around listening to 5-7 days of medical testimony. I do think I have a valid reason for never serving on a jury. Most people already know that I have a serious bias against people who talk at me for more than 5 minutes straight. I should look into getting a medical waiver for that. I guess I have time now though, I don’t have to work a jury for 6 more years as long as I continue to live in Manhattan, which is definitely fuel to the “never move to the other boroughs” fire. See you in six years, suckers.