Hooray for abuse!

Yesterday left me very crabby.

A bunch of people in the jury selection pool seemed thrilled that they had a captive audience to spew their random stories to. Every time the attorneys would ask a question of the group several people would use that chance to tell long, rambling stories that had very little to do with the original question. One guy in particular was the worst. He just kept talking and talking and talking and when he told a story he would use long, drawn out pauses. Sometimes he would pause so long that I wondered if maybe he had passed out from the boredom of his own stories but then he would pick right up again. It took all my willpower not to turn around and shriek "GET A BLOG!" The selection could have taken 30 minutes but it went on for nearly 2 hours thanks to all the stories.

Several people ended up getting excused right away because they seemed unable to grasp simple concepts. The case being tried was a man charged with domestic assault. A bunch of people in the pool said right off they couldn't' be unbiased in the case because "hitting women is wrong". Well no shit hitting women is wrong. That's why it's a crime. But that's not really the point here is it? One woman (who looked like she was in her sixties and came to court wearing a t-shirt and cut off jean shorts) said "Oh, I read so much about abuse in the papers these days and I just really don't agree with it."

I wonder what she thought the rest of us in the jury pool who didn't speak up thought about abuse. "Hooray for abuse! I love it!"

After a bunch of people were excused because they weren't able to be unbiased (and because they were morons unable to grasp the whole point of what we were there for) there were only about 10 people left to select a jury of six from. Much to my surprise I was excused. I was a little confused as to why they let me go but kept the woman who was openly nasty to the defense attorney and the woman who's sister was killed by her husband. Maybe if I had told more stories about myself. I probably only said about a dozen words or so during the whole thing. It's probably for the best though. I said that I could be fair and unbiased but I don't know how true that is. See, I'm not exactly down with abuse either so if there had been even a tiny shred of evidence against the guy I would have had him hung. Or convicted. Or whatever.

Since I got out of jury duty early I was able to make it to Joseph's final soccer game of the season. Just my luck I ended up sitting next to Mrs Asshat who spent a good portion of the game telling the guy next to her that she thinks the reason so many kids are autistic these days is that their parents are too soft on them. I can't even go too far into that because it just makes me so angry. I will say though that against hitting women as I am the only thing that saved that woman from leaving the field with a fat lip was that Jesse was sitting next to me telling me to calm down. Although he almost earned himself a fat lip when he said "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion." True, but sometimes your opinion makes you an ignorant asshole and you need to have the stupid knocked out of you*.

When evening rolled around my parents picked the kids up to take them out for ice cream and to feed geese. I went out to dinner with a friend but first I made Jesse some soup. Because I'm a good wife like that. I took the time to make my husband some dinner even though I wasn't going to be home when he ate. And do you know what he said when I got home and asked him how the soup was? "Eh, it was pretty bland."

Is there a jury in the world that would have convicted me if I had just smacked him around a little bit?

*I would never hit someone. Not my kids, not my husband, not a stranger, not a complete asshat who totally had it coming. Never. If I ever did hit someone though it would be a person who thinks that autism is not real and/or caused by bad parenting.