When I got my first ever Jury Summons recently, I was surprisingly excited. I was out of work at the time and despite my near supernatural ability to be unproductive, I had grown tired of my routine. Having never served on a jury, the prospect of participating in our legal system seemed like the right thing to do, and at the very least it would get me out of the house. So I arrived at the Brooklyn courthouse on a rainy Monday optimistic about doing my part. It took me less than an hour to realize that, as usual, I am an idiot.

There are certain situations that you see in movies that seem so comically awful that they can’t be that bad in real life, namely the DMV and Jury Duty. When I worked in casting I once had the job of finding actors to be in a jury duty scene on a popular television show. I was instructed to find the most disgusting, creepy, scary looking actors in the city. I hired some real horror shows, and to illustrate my point, several of these same actors appeared again on the show in the background when we shot scenes in a mental hospital. It’s the idea in scenes like such to be hyperbolic, so I didn’t think I’d find anything like that in real life. I was wrong. If anything, the jury pools you see onscreen are flattering compared to what it’s really like. I consider myself at best an average looking guy, and when I’m easily the most attractive person in a room of 400 people, something is seriously wrong. They say that only idiots don’t get out of jury duty, and looking around the room I’d say that also applies to the morbidly obese, people with severe respiratory conditions, and the toothless.

After 45 minutes of checking the room for a carbon monoxide leak, my name was called and I was moved to the civil court across the street. I had hoped to get on a criminal trial, but my spirits were raised somewhat by the new crop of jurors that I was placed with. Along with several non-psychotics, there was one semi-hipster and the real prize, two Hassidic Jews. As I sat waiting for the lawyers I quietly fantasized about deliberating with the Hassids in the case of a man suing a restaurant for getting sick from a ham and clam and cheese sandwich. Alas, I didn’t get my wish and was placed on a jury with the mouth-breathers I had met earlier.
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