I remember watching 12 Angry Men (the original movie adaptation with Henry Fonda) for the first time when I was about 7 with my mother. She is a huge classic movie fan, which rubbed off on all of my siblings and myself, so we watched a lot of them growing up. Still do.
Ps, if you have never heard of this movie. Please go watch it. It is absolutely amazing. Without spoiling it, even though it was made nearly 60 years ago, a guy is on trial for murdering his father. Everyone thinks the case is open-and-shut and that he's guilty. Everyone except, :::drum roll::: Henry Fonda. Mr. Fonda believes he is innocent, and he spends the whole of the movie trying to convince the other 11 jurors. It's riveting.
Instead of actually watching the movie, I asked her what they were doing. She explained to me that they were members of a jury. This answer did very little for my tiny child brain. She might as well have said they do statistical analysis and data reconfiguration.
I just stared at her waiting for her to continue, but she had moved on and was back to watching the movie. I don't blame her, I was an annoying fucking kid. If I wasn't crying, I was talking non-stop and asking buttloads of irritating questions, or singing about stuff, or eating something I shouldn't have been eating; like dirt or sleeves of fig newtons. WHOLE. SLEEVES. None of these aspects of my personality have changed. At all. Of course, my mom still has to deal with the bulk of it, but what can you do?
So, she stopped the tape to answer more of my stupid questions.
Wait, what did I just say? Stopped? The tape?! Yes, stopped AND tape, good job. See kids, this was back in the day before we had Blu-Ray players, and Netflix. This movie was recorded off of the television onto a VHS tape. There was no pausing a tape, unless you wanted to never be able to watch it again. You had to stop it. You even had to rewind it to be able to watch it again at a later date, it wasn't automatic. I know! The '90s were a rough time, man.
Liz (my mom) ended up going into this whole long explanation of the legal system and what it entailed, and what exactly a jury was, and I was hooked. I couldn't get enough. I think this is where my obsession with legal dramas started. Hello Law and Order: SVU, I'm lookin' at you. Stabler and Benson FOREVER!
She then told me that anyone can be on a jury, and that when I turned 18 I would be called for jury duty. That was the last time I thought about it until about 4 years ago.
I have never once, in my entire "adult" life, been summoned for jury duty.
Now, I am not saying this as a brag, at all. I have seen the Pauly Shore classic of the same name. The only person, I have ever met, that ever seemed to like it was my mother. She always prayed for a really big murder case any time she was summoned, which I always thought a bit morbid. As I got older, I completely understood. A single mother with A MILLION CHILDREN will take whatever "vacation" is offered her.
I'm bringing this whole thing up because I am terrified. What if they HAVE summoned me and I just don't know about it?
You usually get your summons in the mail, right? Well I don't open my mail unless it's a birthday/ Christmas card, or like Cosmo or something. Seriously, does anyone still open their mail? Ugh, if you just said to yourself "I do," please don't ever talk to me again ya liar. All my bills are paperless, because global warming, so everything goes to my electronic mail. If the sender of a piece of archaic paper mail is someone I don't personally know, I just recycle it.
I know what you're thinking, "well they would probably call you." I thought about that too. Here's the thing, if I don't know the phone number that is calling me, I DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE! That's how people get serial murdered. No one under the age of 47 answers random phone calls anymore. So, if that is indeed the case, I definitely missed their calls.
Again, I know what you're thinking. "Why are you even wasting our time writing about this on your blog, Rebecca? We could be binge-watching 'Making a Murderer' right now." (Pps, if you haven't yet, you definitely should) The reason I bring this up, is because I am pretty sure failing to appear at a jury summons automatically places a warrant out for your arrest.
If I have been called into action, and I didn't show up, I am so screwed.
How would I even get out of that?
"Sorry Your Honor, I barely like to leave my house let alone read my mail."
"It says here that there were several phone calls made to your residence."
"Hahahahahaha. Oh, you're serious?"
"Bailiff, take her away."
If this whole scenario that I have made up, and constantly play over and over in my head, isn't enough, here's another problem. I grew up in New York. It's where I registered to vote, it's where I went to college, it's where my entire family is. I am not. I moved to North Carolina about a year and a half ago. So, that means that IF I was actually summoned at any point over the last 8 or so years, I obviously never showed up, but I also left the state. Are you seeing the issue here?
Well, I guess this means that I may actually get to live out one of my all-time favorite movies, The Fugitive. So, that's a plus.
Rebecca's Adulthood Survival Tip # 3: Learn from my mistakes. Always check your mail and answer your phone. I still won't, because that's scary, but you should.
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