A few weeks ago, I received a summons for jury duty. To make matters worse, the report date was exactly 24 days before the magic birthday, which will exempt me from jury duty for the rest of my life. Now, don’t get me wrong. I honestly don’t mind doing my civic duty as long as it doesn’t interfere with important aspects of my life, such as working in order to get paid and buy groceries. In fact, I served on a jury in a federal case a few years ago. It was an interesting experience, and I’m glad I got to see how our judicial system works in real life—although it’s not nearly as exciting as depicted on TV.

The defendant, who was on trial for his third conviction of drug dealing and clearly guilty, apparently thought he would do better to take his chances with a trial rather than making a plea deal. He laundered his drug money through his “car wash” business, which consisted of a bucket and a hose. He had also made a self-incriminating rap video of himself holding his cocaine and bragging about it. His defense attorney gave the jurors many comical moments with her incompetence, such as leaving the gun recovered from his apartment (which was illegal as a convicted felon) lying directly in front of him on the witness stand within easy reach. Hopefully, it wasn’t loaded. His fingerprints also convicted him, despite his attorney’s three-hour yawn-worthy attempt to discredit the fingerprint expert.

Still, despite the overwhelming evidence against him, we had two jurors who didn’t want the responsibility of making the decision to send the poor guy to prison. We spent a long time debating all the counts for which he was charged and trying to keep our sanity. Ultimately, we had to concede to lesser charges to get a unanimous vote.

Despite the disruption to my life and having to argue with people who disagreed with me, I wouldn’t mind serving on a jury again, provided the timing was convenient. (Is it ever?) The summons specified I was required to go online and complete a juror questionnaire, which Hubby did for me. (Not that I couldn’t have done it myself. Probably.)

Then, six days before my report date, my cardiologist’s office called, saying there was a problem with my heart monitor and I needed to come in as soon as possible, which for them was the next week. If I couldn’t come in then, it would be another two weeks before I could get in. I called the number given on the summons to be excused or rescheduled, but an electronic recording snidely informed me I was ineligible because my report date was less than a week away. (I suppose no prospective juror has ever had a last-minute illness or emergency that would take precedence over jury duty.) Then I called the number given for people unable to access the internet. (Although, seriously, would you want someone who couldn’t access the internet on your jury deciding your fate? Just sayin’.) Surprise, surprise, nobody answered, so I left a voicemail. The next day, after not getting a callback and after calling numerous times and still not getting a human, I left another voice mail. Again, surprise, surprise, nobody called me back.

The next day, after still not being called back, I personally went to the courthouse and waited forever in a queue of other people after signing in electronically with no human to talk to. (Have I mentioned how sick I am of technology?) I did remember to change out of my Rosemont Baptist Church T-shirt before I went just in case I had to get ugly. No need to disparage the whole church just because my fun meter had hit bottom. I had to enter my phone number when I checked in. While waiting, I received a helpful (not) text from the courthouse asking what the nature of my business was. When I gave my reply, I was informed I could call a certain number to get an exemption from jury duty. Gosh! Why hadn’t I thought of that before coming all the way to the courthouse? Oh, wait, I did. I explained that dilemma to the non-human with their automatic non-helpful text because I love arguing with non-humans. Then, the non-human sent me a reply. “Someone will be with you shortly.” THANK YOU! That’s all I wanted in the first place!

After an eternity—“shortly” being a relative word—my name finally popped up on the screen to be seen at window #9. When I walked into the inner sanctum, I could see why things were moving at the pace of an arthritic turtle. Out of ten windows, only two were manned by people. The woman at #9 told me I needed to get my doctor to fax an excuse. I told her I could barely get my doctor’s office to fax my prescriptions; there was no guarantee they would fax a jury duty excuse in a timely manner, if at all. In their defense, they have life-and-death patients who take priority over remembering to fax jury duty excuses. She then disappeared to talk to someone above her pay grade. Eventually, she returned and said I had been excused from jury duty the next week. I thanked her and attempted to salvage the rest of my day.

When I got home, I found an email waiting that said my jury duty had been rescheduled for a week in May when we would be on vacation. I finally got the last laugh. By then, I will have passed my magic birthday and will be exempt.