"we’re going to have to move on…"-Cranberries

Ah-ooooga! Ah-ooooga!

Wha?

Ah-ooooga! Ah-ooooga!

And again, wha?

Alarm?

Ah-ooooga! Ah-ooooga!

Sounds like...old horn…car horn...why? No own old car...

Ah-ooooga! Ah-ooooga!

Dear Lord, I promise firstborn boy-spawn...make noise stop.

Ah-ooooga! Ah-ooooga!

I'm reaching...reaching...Noisy box...Bad box...Bad noise...who--

Ah-ooooga! Ah-ooooga!

Numbers...time...6:30...sleep all day..? Morning? 6:30,morning? Really? Why noise?

Ah-oobopeepbopeepbopeepbopeep

Sheep? Must find sheep. Lost sheep. Feed sheep? Clarisse? Screaming lambs? Why so early? Silence lambs...

Bopeepbopeepbopeepbopeep

Leave me alone! I'm at home, fleeting dreams behind me.

Bobeepbobeepbeepbeepbeep

It's my alarm. I'm coming to. I don't know why it's set this early.

Must...

Stop...

Noise...

Beepbeepbe-tzzzt!

Thank God I took my Tazer to bed! Now...why am I up?

Jury duty.

Crap.

That's right. Jury duty today. I lucked out all week. I thought I'd escaped. Escape Thursday. Be done. I did. I'm not. Why? Who works on Friday? The county.

Crap.

Not me. I do not work on Friday, county I am. I will not work it on a bus. I will not work it in a truss. It's Friday I sit in a jury lounge and wait. Wait for what? Luck of the draw of course. My luck? Why would you ask that? You've read my blog. You see me. My Friday is ruined. How much evidence do you need?

At the sound of the tone, Rob is screwed.

Beep!

Yeah, I'm not sure what this means. I'm still not really awake so it only seems like I just got here. Still, the clock says it's 11:40. The clerk at the desk called my name. She says she wants to send me to an off site location. She wants to send me to high school.

Really? I kind of liked high school. In this case it's courtroom detention. They caught me chewing gum. Not really. No, I really was chewing gum, it's not really detention. Well at least not literally; although I think technically, it could qualify.

According to the woman calling names, the court is overrun with scallywags and ne'er-do-wells. They're separating the miscreants and sending them back to summer school. I saw this movie, it stars Mark Harmon, right? I guess the empty class rooms have seats to fill, and the courts have the warm bodies. I suppose they've got the cold bodies too, although one could argue that those belong to the morgue. Anyway my warm and muggy body is on it's way to an off-site make-shift courtroom. I hope I don't fall asleep first. I'm driving.

Did I mention I only got 4 hours sleep last night?

I did. Finish work by 2:30, up by 6:30, you do the math. No really, you do it, I'm too tired. I'll take your word. I'll also take a seat. I'm here at the school. Damn, I hope I parked the car. Did I mention I'm tired?

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep

That's either my alarm or somebody's backing their SUV into a space. I pray for the former, find it's the latter.

In the classroom I get schooled on crowd control by a court attendant.

"You guys will be out of here within 45 minutes."

"Yea!"

He told us that 3 hours ago. We gave our reply 2 hours and 59 minutes ago. If he speaks again, I think we'd give him a new reply.

"Oh dear! Timmy cover your ears, that Rob guy is going to speak!"

It wouldn't be too bad, but there are 12 angry monkeys playing musical chairs up front, and nobody wants to keep their seat. You couldn't pry the rest of us from our seats with a full Sheryl Crow bar and an Ashton Kutcher film fest.

"…This is LA…"

"Dude! Where's my Career?"

"Don't care, I'm not moving."

It looks like the defendant is defending himself, sans attorney. The plaintiff brought one, but she's not sharing. That's funny. In school, whenever we brought one, we needed to bring enough for the whole class. Sucks to be the defendant.

"Would you feel biased towards a person defending themselves against somebody with a lawyer?"

I'm thinking, "No, I'm more likely to think the defendant is stupid." but I don't say that. Especially not since the whole potential jury is now nodding like a bobble-herd. They think they see sunlight, and they're rats leaping from a ship. That's alright, let them try; the rest of us have formed a red rover, red rover line and none of those 12 bastards are getting their ass over.

And so it goes. As I'm sitting there watching the two sides pick their jury, and a jury trying to be unpicked, I'm filled with an urge to call MyUnwife. I don't, but I want to.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"What's up?"

"You're the bomb."

"What? Who is this again?"

"It's me, Rob."

"Uhm…then maybe I misheard," there's a loud shuffling noise from the phone. Things falling, scrambling, muffled sounds of things being thrown around, MyUnwife's breathing heavy, "Where did you plant the bomb?"

"No, You're the bomb."

"Oh, my God! What did you put in my food?"

"Nothing! No! I'm here in court. I'm watching mankind at it's worst."

"Ok…" The noise on the other end quiets, as I imagine the dust settles.

"No, this could have been much worse. We could have done this court thing. We could have been animals at each other's throat. You didn't do that. I didn't do that. Thank You."

"Uhm, who is this again."

"If you were here I'd hug you."

"Ok now you're just trying to scare me. Go do something constructive."

"I think we did. Or maybe not constructive, but not nearly as destructive as it could have been."

"Well…no, you're right…"

"That's all I wanted to say. Thank you."

"Uh...then you take care of yourself then."

"Don't worry I will…."

The woman next to me is nudging my shoulder. "Wake up!" she hisses, "we can go now."

I smile and grab my stuff. Yes we can. Yes we can...