Ticked Off Tuesday: American Idol Style

I spent last Tuesday watching My Cousin Vinny, Walk the Line and the first part of Castaway.

I wasn't sick, I was at jury duty.

In New Jersey, we have a flat screen TV, blu-ray player and Bose speakers in the jury room. No wonder our property taxes are so high. We also had 2 jury wranglers, who were very nice.

I'm still flabbergasted that someone though My Cousin Vinny was a good movie to show prospective jurors. And Castaway seems kind of sick when you consider that everyone's basically trapped at the county court house, away from friends and family, unable to leave of their own volition. Apparently these are always the choices. I'm going to assume that these are the jury wranglers' favorites, though I couldn't listen to my favorite movies every day without wanting to kill someone.

Between that and my choice of Animal House, I'm guessing they'd never hire me as a jury wrangler.

Anyway, every single case that was up on my day settled except for one.

They needed two jurors on my day. Two. We were there from 8 until 2:30 (with a long break for lunch) so that two people could serve. Normally, people are there until 4:30.

So at least I was lucky. Though not as lucky as the people who checked in the day before and found out they didn't have to show up at all. I never even got called into a courtroom. It seems like such an archaic system, despite the Bose Speakers and the online forms.

Like, shouldn't we be able to watch online and vote that way? Or at least call it in like people do for American Idol?    Wouldn't everyone hate jury duty less if it meant they had to stay home and watch TV? Plus, it would be much easier to enlist the chronically ill, agoraphobics, stay-at-home parents and the unemployed that way.

The only thing I would have missed if I'd gotten to stay at home would have been the delicious lunch I had at Casual Habana in Hackensack. Totally owe my dad one for the recommendation.

But it's not like I could not have gone there on some other occasion.

So yeah, I think the whole concept of jury duty should be overhauled. And put online. Yes, that might eliminate people who don't have internet access or smartphones but. . . .shouldn't we let them out of jury duty anyway? They've got enough to deal with. Or they could go to their local library, which is probably closer than their county courthouse anyway.