Jury duty. I have fucking jury duty. Which I would LOVE, I would LOVE to be on a jury, if I didn’t actually have responsibilities at work. Go in, see a slice of life, you know, a cross section of all of Los Angeles. Watch a video about our founding fathers. Jury of your peers, because the British practiced Roman law where you were guilty until proven innocent and your fate was decided by some aristocratic judge, some fifth cousin of a baronet with a powdered wig on who always sided with whoever owned property. I would love to be on a jury– because whoever walked in, whoever was accused, there is no WAY I am sending that motherfucker to jail. No matter what the crime, no matter how strong the evidence. Sorry. We throw too many people in jail over too much bullshit and some nineteen year old black kid who did something stupid is neither going to be deterred nor rehabilitated by getting thrown in a piss-smelling concrete warehouse with a bunch of dudes covered in tattoos made with sharpened paper clips. You are walking, sir. I don’t give a fuck if it’s the trial of the guy who robbed me.
And in this scenario, where I actually could perform my civic duty as a juror, I would craftily represent myself as the most straightforward, neutral candidate ever put forth to judge my fellows. Would you convict? Maybe. Depends on material evidence. Have you ever done drugs? No sir. Have you ever committed a felony? No sir. Have you ever known anybody that was the victim of a serious crime? No sir. I would be a god damn stealth assassin worming my way on to the jury so I could give some nineteen year old gangbanger the best day of his life. Because I am no better than that kid, and we both deserve to be breathing free air.
But no. I have to get out of it. I have to say whatever gets me the fuck off that trial as fast as possible because without me, motherfucking work collapses. Because not only do I have my “cool” creative duties, but I gotta run the office. Thus I am too important to this institution that I hate, and my absence is not going to make them realize this and feel motherfucking gratitude that I keep the place running smoothly the other three hundred sixty four god damn days a year– it is instead going to make them angry that I only do a superb motherfucking job, but I didn’t go so far above and beyond merely doing my job superbly as to create and maintain systems that make me completely replaceable by someone who has no idea what the fuck they’re doing.
Because if the temp who covers for me fucks up, it’s gonna be my fault. If the person who has no familiarity whatsoever with the company cannot step seamlessly into the shoes of the person who has not missed a single day at this job for five fucking years then it’s a disaster and I’ve done a horrible job. Everything just proves that I’ve done a horrible job, including the fact that I’m irreplaceable.
And the problem is, my boss is an asshole. Or, he’s capable of being nice, but it’s fake nice, and it puts such a strain on him not to be able to immediately vent the 30 million PSI worth of asshole steam that builds up every five minutes, it just builds and builds an builds– if he is forced to go a whole day without being an asshole, he will literally explode in flames. But that won’t hapen– it’ll be forty five minutes before he bites the poor kid’s head off. Which will scare the shit out of him, which will make him nervous and make him stutter and make him fuck up, which will infuriate my asshole boss even more, and so on and so forth in an assholic snake forever eating its own asshole tail.
Anyway. Sorry D’Andre, but you’re gonna get a bunch of retired old people who can actually serve and you’re gonna do hard time. The fucking cast of COCOON is the only group who can actually serve on a jury and so, you’re gonna hang.
delicioustacos 
I had jury duty once. I lived in Camden County, New Jersey at the time, which is home to the city of Camden, which, if you’ve ever read about it or been there, is one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. This place is a shithole. I mean, it looks like fucking Dresden after the allies firebombed it during WW2. There is not one nice area in the entire city; it’s just a giant open-air drug market. Remember “Hamsterdam” in that one season of The Wire? That is what the city of Camden reminds me of. Anyway, I got called up for a case – this black kid who, no doubt, was a corner boy on one of the sets had a charge for possesion with intent: coke. Cops probably found his pack stashed in a Doritos bag hidden in the wheel well of an ’86 Mazda RX7 parked on the block or something. Like you, I would have acquitted him regardless, but we had a lunch break, and I was a heroin addict at the time so I went down the street to cop some dope – they sold it literally 5 blocks from the courthouse – and I got caught up in a sting with my fucking jury badge on! Cops were laughing their asses off.