The Pocketbook Doth Suffer

So it's nearly back to school time around these parts. Actually it's past back to school time but my particular county is comprised of two halves that are polar opposites when it comes to the pocketbook size of the inhabitants, and managed from the lower end of that scale, it found itself with huge budgetary issues--surprise!--so our kids have gotten an added two weeks of summer. A nice benefit for us; too bad it takes colossal mismanagement of tax payer dollars to get it. And even after all the moola we shell into the system, we as parents still end up paying out the wazoo for school stuff, don't we? I hate to sound like I'm 67 but I swear it wasn't like this when I was growing up.

I do not recall needing extra hands to tote in all the extra school supplies my mother was asked to buy for me in middle school. Today, it's not just pencils, paper and notebooks you need to provide your child. It's also crayons, glue sticks, erasers, dry erase markers (but no board, hmmm...who are these for, exactly?), highlighters, red pens and blue pens (no gel), paper, 15 sizes of notebooks, notebook dividers, paper clips, pencil pouches, compasses, calculators, scissors, tissues, hand sanitizer, locker shelves, paper towels, and an extra $20 to grease the palm of the principal. Next thing you know, we'll be responsible for our own kid's chairs and a desk. And oh yeah, throw in a chalkboard while you're at it.

What have my tax dollars paid for? Union teacher salaries? School supplies for the lower end schools whose parents aren't dumb enough to be suckered into spending more money over and above taxes to buy all this? I remember when schools had scissors there--lots of 'em. And erasers too, amazingly.

I also remember when school lunches came in one variety and cost $.50 a day. And even then, I was on the reduced meal plan--please go to a completely different area of the school to purchase your "I can't afford the entire $.50" lunch tickets--and when you get them, they're red and all the normal priced tickets are green so everyone knows you're at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. No humiliation there.

Tonight, I had to factor my son's lunch costs into my household monthly budget because it's not the kind of coin you just pull out of your pocket when your child says he needs lunch money. It runs us about $100 a month; and Chase is not a big eater. $5/day he spends on lunches because the school offers choices. There's the traditional mystery meat + 2 mushy vegetables + fruit cup lunch. Or there's the lunch line with stars and glitter and neon flashing lights, where all the cool kids shop for buffalo wings, fries, big pretzels, milkshakes, Gatorades, Nestle Quik chocolate milk and other fantastic food options I myself wouldn't mind having for lunch. Naturally, where do all the kids migrate like moths to a flame? Hmmm, Sh!t on a Shingle or food that's good enough to serve outside of school? And thus, $100 a month for lunch. But after my days of walking around with the red tickets instead of the green, I won't foist the mystery meat option on him, even if it does taste pretty good with enough gravy.

Ah, the days of 6:30 a.m. wake-ups and homework will soon be back. In the vernacular of the great Shakespeare: And thus, my pocketbook doth suffer.

The Judicial System Nightmare

I spent Monday of this week frolicking in the hollows of the Atlanta judicial system performing my civic duty as a potential juror. And by frolicking I mean sitting in a barely cushioned, straight-backed chair in a huge, eerily quiet white room until my fanny and mind were equally numb. And I enjoyed that all the live-long day.

I understand that our Constitution guarantees potential wrongdoers and those who’ve been wronged the right to a fair trial in front of their peers. But you would think a country great enough to have churned out the iPhone, Scream Machine and the Big Mac would be clever and savvy enough to find a more efficient and expeditious method of executing this due process.

I arrived at 8:00 a.m. along with about 400 of my fellow compatriates, and by 10:00, all that had occurred in the two hours we’d been there was the showing of a flick about how jury duty works and how it should really be seen as a privilege, not a burden. I must say, if I’m being completely honest, that by the end of the movie, I still felt burdened. Granted, they were going to pay me a whopping $25 a day for my service but that just felt like a cheap buy off to win me over to the “privilege” side of the debate. It didn’t work.

The silence of the room was broken at last around 10:30 a.m. from a podium bearing a microphone, a la college classroom. (Correction—there had been previous audible revelations coming from said podium but they were limited to “Do not use your cell phones in this room!” admonitions; nothing exciting.) But at 10:30, the jury wrangler stood up and announced that she would be calling names that were members of the first set of potential jurors for a particular case.

The first thing I noticed was that she overused the word "Please." And I never thought you could overuse that particular word but I was wrong.

“Please listen for me to caw yo nammmmme please,” a lady of mature years bellowed so loudly that the microphone was merely overkill. “When you hear yo nammmmme, please, be sure to answer so I can hear you please.” And henceforth she proceeded to butcher every single name on the list. At last, some entertainment. It only took a few of these before it became apparent why her own volume level was a notch or ten too high: she had to be deaf as a doorknob. She’d stumble through a name and the owner would call the required “Here!” or “Yes!” A beat later, she’d hark out the same name again, to which another “Here!” would resound. Finally, the group of folks around the chosen one would all be yelling “He’s HERE—right HERE! He’s HERE!” until she finally heard them. At which point she’d utter into the microphone: “Well you have to speak up please or I can’t hear you please.” Speak up? If they yelled any louder, we’d be disrupting Alabama courtrooms.

She continued on this way for each set of 60 names on the lists. Occasionally we were even rewarded with an “Ah Lawd” as she gazed at the name before her with too many consonants and not enough vowels. By the end, I was disappointed when she broke down and started spelling some of the names. Quitter.

But while wildly entertaining, my name was never among those she called. (How could one mess up Megan Elizabeth Hicks? I couldn’t wait to find out and felt gypped that it never happened.)

By 11:00, she’d annihilated all the superior court jurors’ names that she needed. There were a few more rounds of state jurors called and then…nothing. Hmmm, now what? I’d never run into this situation before, having always been called before to at least go into a courtroom with 59 others and hear what wrongdoing someone was accused of...well...doing. An hour went by and she strolled to the pointless mic again. “I’m afraid I cannot let you go just yet please. The judges think they might still need some of you just in case. You’re free for an hour lunch and please report back here by 1:00. Please.”

Just in case? What’s worse that being a juror? A just in case juror. Even worse: the not-knowing exactly how long we’d have to continue sitting in that big, now fairly empty room before finally being called or set free. Reminds me of how I heard labor described before I experienced it myself: It’s not that contractions are so bad you cannot tolerate them. It’s the not knowing how long they will continue to hit you that is the mental killer.

From my past experiences with jury duty, I thought it stunk. But this sitting there, not even getting called into a courtroom to enjoy the legal banter and watch the accused squirm, this was torture. And besides, if I wasn’t ever called into a courtroom, how would I get the chance to provide the answers I’d drummed up to ensure no sane individual would want me on their jury?

“Am I married? Oh yes, I’m the fourth wife of my second cousin who is also the nephew of my great aunt Rosalee who always said… Oh, that’s enough? Ok.”

“What do I do for a living? I’m an artist. A sandwich artist. You want tomatoes on that?”

“Which one’s the guilty guy? Yeah, he looks guilty alright…”

Out at lunch I scarfed a sandwich and juiced up my phone in the car—stupid me didn’t bring a phone charger. Apparently I thought that court holding rooms were void of electrical outlets. And wifi. Didn’t bring a laptop but lots of other forward-thinking bastards had. Damn it.

Back at 1:00, we all trudged in and sat once more, waiting. 2:00 showed up but no more announcements did. About 2:30, the gal stepped to the podium that now mocked us and announced that she still couldn’t let us go because a judge said so. Apparently we might be needed still. Groans were heard like waves through the room. Didn’t they each have their 60 folks? If you can’t get 14 impartial people out of those, it seems like someone’s just being overly picky.

As the minutes ticked by, folks everywhere began assuming odd and awkward positions in the hopes of attaining comfort the chair-designers didn’t dream possible. After awhile, it looked like Jim Jones’s place. One clever guy arranged three chairs together in such a way that he could stretch out and fall asleep; thus adding snoring to the fun of the day for the rest of us. I worked from my phone as long as I could but just after 2:30, the battery went kaput and I was left with only my books and a continuous mental scroll of my To Do list that was only getting longer as I remembered more crap I needed to be doing if I were anywhere but a court-holding cell. And of course, I was pleading to God that this nightmare be over soon.

At 3:20, the voice of doom again came over the loudspeaker. We were being granted a 10 minute break but still couldn’t quite be released. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. She promised to check with the judge again in 15 minutes to see if anything had changed. Good, I thought, that usually works for my son on me: keep asking the same question every few minutes until you get the answer you want.

At 3:45, she at last gave us the nod to get the hell out of dodge. You’ve never seen folks rush an exit door the way we all did.

At least now I have the luxury of knowing I won’t be called again for another 18 months. Oh, and the $3/hour I earned for the “privilege.”