Confessions of A Jury Duty Snob - Part Two - "Hood Rats" aka Mumbalina

I noticed her immediately, it was not in the way that you notice someone that you could admire. There was something the way she walked, not that it was a take notice or own the room type of walk. It was the way that she walked without swinging her arms that caught my attention. That, and the fact that she wore a black headband that covered the top of her left eye.

My attention turned to my thoughts, "Could they have included the defendants in the same room as the jurors?" As she sauntered into the room with her none swinging arms, I thought, "please do not stop here" because I crave a drama free life. Welp! you probably guessed with my luck, she chose the seat across the table and to the left of my seat. 

She was a relatively young lady. I would guess late twenties. She had a fashion magazine that she was reading. To be fair, she wasn't really reading aloud but she had a sort of hiss as she read each word. The sound was that of the snake vernacular, if you will. "sss-sssss-sssss", she hissed. I kept looking up and across the table because it was distracting and concerning and extremely unusual, even for the hood. As I looked up, she caught my glance with the one exposed eye with a sideways glance. It was Silence of the Lambs scary. I think this may have been the strangest thing that I have experienced all year, and it's December.  It was an eerie kind of glance made without fully raising her head kind of lizard like strangeness. Definitely, nightmare worthy. I was spooked.

Before I could even wonder what would happen if, heaven forbid she was selected for a jury; I was forced to deal with the fact that she was apparently hungry. She opened the first bag of chips, and proceeded to smack her lips, crunch really loud and lick her fingers. I've been through a lot, I thought

"this will be over soon, I can do this". (You know they only fill the chip bag halfway anyway) and then she pulled up a second bag and here we go. I tried to busy myself and I asked God to fix it.  She went back to the hissing and silently chuckling to herself and then she stood up. She left the table and came back with, you guessed it, bag number three. In case you didn't know, God has a sense of humor.

I'm just curious, have you ever seen someone talk without moving their lips? Well, some woman came and sat at the table. She apparently knew the robot walker. She started asking her questions like what time are you done? What have you been doing and Mumbalina said, "ssssm  the woman understood the vernacular..I did not. The woman said, why are you sitting over here? Did they call you yet?  Mumbalina slowly lifted her panel number and showed it to her.  My thoughts turned to who is this woman?  How did she get in here. Is this room safe? I began to run through my active shooter training in my mind and identify potential escape routes.

I slid my iPad off the table and held my phone in my lap, don't judge me. I was suddenly on full alert. I could not focus on the work that I was doing because I needed to pay attention to my surroundings. In doing so, I noticed that my table mate, directly to my left had a nice laptop cover in pink ( I digress). I was speaking to her about it and she said, "amazon" . At that moment, Mumbalina looked up, without moving her neck and mumbled in a decrescendo, "that's really nice.......that's really.... nice...that's... really... nice". I began  to feel that I had inspired Mumbalina.  My work was done here. Mumbalina's number was called, "Panel 2".  The woman who apparently was her caregiver/guardian asked, "Do you want me to go for you?" Mumbalina stood, said no and walked off without moving one arm. I pray that she was not selected.

Confessions of a Jury Duty Snob - Part One - The Yellow Letter

It's interesting, as I sit in the jury room and observe. I'm guessing I will be observing all day.  I am a people watcher and ooooh boy there are some people worth watching today.

Should I start with the separation of church and state or should I focus on my local community? decisions, decisions..

I will start with the separation of church and state, as I call it or "Grand Jury/Regular Jury" or "Yellow letter/White card".  As you arrive to the designated location, you hear someone say, "Do you have the yellow letter or the white card?" Yellow letters to the left, that's for the GRANDE jury ...and yes the "e" was added for emphasis).  If you have a white card sit on the right side ONLY. On this particular day, I held a white card. Surely there had been a mistake because of course if it was Grande, I should be there. At that moment, I felt Malcolm tickle the base of my neck. I willed Mr. X to hold off for a minute. I needed more information before I resorted to "any means".

It became clear to me that we had established territories. There was elite seating in the heights and  peasant seating in the hood.  Apparently, I was mistakenly selected to sit in the hood section. Ok, so I took my seat. It's not like I hadn't been here before.

To take it a step further, there were two separate orientations. The hood orientation was courtesy of a video of Timothy Evans ( which had to have been made at least 20 years ago) that was streamed on 3 or 4 televisions for probably about 100 plus. If you were not in the view of the television, oh well, you will figure it out.

The Elite jurors in the heights were provided an in-person orientation by one of the states attorneys. From the distance, I could hear him providing his credentials and "welcoming" them. I had to hold my breath and pray that the peasants would settle down because I needed to hear  THIS!!!!! I heard Mr. States Attorney say, "If you received the yellow "invitation" letter you are here for the grand jury." HMPH! Invitation? ..as if it was an exclusive party for the chosen few.  I was feeling somekindaway and then I heard him say, "If you are selected, you will serve for a period of FIVE weeks. You will need to be available through January 11th."  I rared back in my hood seat and rubbed my belly.  Will you look how God works?  HE knew I was on vacation for three of those weeks. This was just a test.  I passed.