Civic Duty

So I had jury duty today. People were complaining all day long that it was taking so long, even though it clearly said on the summons that we should expect to be there until at least 4 or 5pm. The air conditioning in the court house was also "on the blink" today, so people complained about that all day long too - even though it was maybe 70 degrees at the most. All of that complaining was nothing, though, compared to the mindless drivel and chit chat I had to listen to amongst my fellow Americans while I just tried to read a stinking book.

"Yeah, I know talking on cell phones is illegal in New Jersey."

"You have to use a hands free thing in Pennsylvania, otherwise it's against the law."

"It's against the law in Pennsylvania? I do it all the time and I've never been pulled over."

"Yeah, it's illegal unless you have a hands free thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I clip mine on the sun visor and put it on speaker phone. I might get one of them saw tooth things, though."

"Those things are weird. People look like robots."

"Yeah. But it's illegal to just hold the phone and talk on it in Pennsylvania."

"I wonder why you don't see more people get pulled over for that."

"I don't know. Well, like with seatbelts, they can't pull you over for it, they can just give you an extra ticket if you get pulled over for something else."

"So you could get pulled over for talking on the cell phone and then get an extra ticket for not having your seatbelt buckled."

"Double whammy."

"It's kind of like that thing where you're supposed to turn your headlights on in a construction zone. Nobody does it."

"Wait, what's this?"

"Yeah, there's signs. You're supposed to turn your lights on when you go through construction zones."

"I never saw those signs."

"Yeah, there always there but nobody does it."

"You'd think the guys holding the slow down signs would be able to tell people to turn them on or something."

"One of those guys got hit by a car a couple weeks ago."

"That's a dangerous job."

"Yeah. But they make good money."

I kid you not. This is not a fabricated conversation. It really happened. And there was more. This other guy was telling someone about a movie with Jennifer Lopez in it, but he wasn't sure if her name was Jennifer Lopez. So in order to try and think of her name, he went on to go through pretty much the entire plot line of the movie "Enough". The entire plot line.

Thanks for reading.