Lucky Juror Number 13

Jury Duty! How Fun!

Recently, I was able to see our legal system at work. And I’m not talking about having to write a big fat check for a speeding ticket from Wisconsin. Not that I have ever had one.
  
No, I got a juror questionnaire in the mail. Hot damn! I filled it out immediately, sent it in, and waited anxiously. Approximately 4 seconds later, the county called me for jury duty. So fast! I marveled. All the other juror prospects must be either rearranging their sock drawers or washing their hair. Well, they wouldn’t know what they were missing. I felt so lucky and excited and chosen. My husband just gave me funny looks.

The day of my new legal career dawned bright and sunny. I had a whole extra half hour that morning, so that was exciting. I dallied around the house, petting the dog, drinking extra coffee to get my brain ready for all the legal puzzles I would surely be solving, and lining up an extra word find book in case I finished the first one, what with all that delicious free time.

After I reached the downtown area, I realized a much smarter way of using that half hour would have been to spend it looking for a parking spot, as it seemed every citizen in town--and a couple hundred from out of town--had business down at the courthouse.

If the parking deck was any indication, I estimated that there must have been approximately 700 people who had been called for jury duty that same Tuesday who actually showed up. I ended up parking somewhere in south Detroit.

We were all crammed into a area the size of a fitting room at a department store, except it was a little smaller and didn’t have mirrors. There were, however, some televisions, and we got to watch a stimulating movie about the justice system. I took meticulous notes until I saw I was the only nerd doing so.

However, I was excited because a) there was free coffee, b) I knew that I would get a big whopping check for $13 and daydreamed of how I would spend it and c) I got to do some serious people watching. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I got in enough people watching to last me a very long time, which means that I wouldn’t have to travel to Wal-Mart to get my fix.

After a couple of hours of swilling free coffee and getting lost find the ladies’, my name was called and I was taken with about 50 other people into a courtroom for possible inclusion as a juror in a criminal case. Name after name was called and once they had questioned and accepted 12 jurors, I was smugly packing up my books and magazines, cerain that I would be excused. I would go home to go online and spend my $13 on Amazon.
 
It was not to be. Would that I had this sort of luck in the lottery! In a room with approximately 35 other prospective jurors, guess whose name got called next. As an ALTERNATE. Not even a real juror, but an ALTERNATE, lucky juror number 13.

The jury questioning was very interesting. Here’s a sample of what they asked the REAL jurors:

Lawyer: What is your name? Where do you live? What’s the biggest problem facing this area? Are you related to any law enforcement people? Do you have pets? Are you a citizen of the United Sates? Can you breathe on your own? Are you human?

Here’s a sample of what they asked ME:

Lawyer: What is your name? How many hours do you sleep at night? Ever had a charley horse? Do you believe in aliens? Ever flush a goldfish? Are you regular? Do you suffer from tennis elbow? What is your favorite color? 
 
Of course, I drew the line at that last one. Even I have my dignity and the whole color issue…well, that was just WAY too personal.

For those of you who don’t know, the alternate juror is like the pale, skinny kid in gym class who gets picked last for basketball or softball. It’s the punishment juror. You are forced to stay in the courtroom all day long, listen to all the same testimony as the actual jurors, take the same breaks and yawning the same yawns, but when the state and the defense have both rested and if the jury of twelve is ready, willing, and able to go into the jury room and begin the REAL jury work, YOU would go home.

Today, the 12 real jurors were all ready, willing, and able to deliberate. To make matters worse, now after listening to all that testimony and forming opinions, I was not even able to find out who they were going to vote off the island, because I was DISMISSED. Like an attorney’s used Kleenex or a judge’s broken shoelace.

At any rate, after being thanked profusely by the court, I was excused and free to go. I was given two days’ worth of jury pay, minus the cost of the paper used to print the check.
  
However, I was gifted with a lovely certificate, suitable for framing, congratulating me on serving. My eyes filled with tears as I swear I heard the song God Bless America. I was so honored that it took some of the sting out of the fact that I wasn’t even able to find out if the defendant was guilty or not guilty.

Never one to let things go, however, I found out through some tricky internet sleuthing that the jury ended up voting exactly the way I would have…not guilty.

John Grisham would have been proud.

(originally printed here:  http://www.examiner.com/article/lucky-juror-number-13)

Cold Sores and Dry Shampoo

It began innocently enough.  A minor itch.  A slight twinge.  A little tingle.  I started to fret.  But maybe it wouldn’t happen this time.  After all, I had gotten through other bouts of illness without developing one—maybe this would be one of those times.  

 

Dream on. 

 

It was not to be.  At work, I felt the no-mistaking-it tingle heralding the new arrival, and a look in my compact mirror confirmed what I already knew:  I was witnessing the birth of the world’s worst cold sore.  

 

Fever Blister.  Herpes simplex.  It all sounds different to the ear but in the end, they are all the same—a gigantic cootie cluster on my lower lip, half an inch from dead center.

 

Maybe it wasn’t so much a birth as a coming home, however.  After all, the only place I ever, ever get cold sores is in that very same spot.  Same lip.  Every time.  What skeeves me out even more is the fact that despite my OCD antibacterial hand gel application efforts, despite wiping every touchable hard surface at home and at work with antibacterial wipes, despite bathing in Lysol and gargling with bleach, I got one anyway.  

 

Remembering backward, I realized that I had seen a coworker sporting a fever blister a week or two before.  The "ewww" factor has been racketed up a notch.

 

Typically, the day before the spot actually makes its debut there is also quite a bit of pain, especially on the Chris Cacciatore unique pain scale.  I'm not saying I'm a big baby but even a hangnail will wake me up at night.  Throw a cold sore at me and it’s grounds for calling in sick.

 

The last time I got a massive cold sore was during a…you guessed it…cold.  My defenses were down; I should have seen it coming.  I had felt crappy all day at work, and suddenly, my entire bottom lip looked as if a chorus line of bees had stung it in unison.  That night at home, the pain was so intense that I was forced to start my obituary.  

 

The next morning, surprised to find myself still alive, I realized that due to all the tossing and turning I did the night during the world’s worst night’s sleep, I had overslept.

 

For those who have no time for a quick shower, it’s dry shampoo to the rescue.  Or so I thought.

I had picked it up on a whim, this Tresemme dry shampoo.  I had overheard a conversation while sitting at McDonald's writing one afternoon.  It's normally a great place to write because you can tune everything out except this time, when two young women were talking about their hair, it caught my attention, mostly because they were actually pronouncing it "her".  That word was accompanied by lots of patting of said "her".  The conversation was animated as they discussed hair products but came to a standstill when one told the other she washed her hair daily.

 

The other said back, "You'll dry your "her" out!  Don't do that, girl.  Use some o' that dry shampoo.  You won’t believe how it perks up your hairstyle on days when you are skipping a day, or maybe you're just too lazy to wash your hair.”  

 

What?  A new way to be stylish while still allowing me to be lazy?  Sign me up.  I actually found some at the store on the way home.  Now, normally, I don't take much advice from people sitting in McDonald's but due to the above referenced illness, I’m game...and since I overslept, what better time to try it?

 

Getting ready for work that morning, squinting through the cloud of agony my lip was causing, I read the directions and applied the dry shampoo to my own "her" accordingly, then brushed it out as instructed.

 

This is a product that I will never, ever buy again.  I have a dreadful feeling it had been moved from the Halloween section of Wal-Mart into the hair section, as it obviously was meant to be used to make white stripes in my hair for a Bride of Frankenstein costume.  Despite vigorous brushing, I couldn't brush the white out and ended up with not only white hair but a very pink scalp.

 

not so fast, Romeo.  This chick is taken.

 

Thanks, random strangers at McDonald's.  Moms always said don't eavesdrop and I should have listened.

 

It worked out in the end, however, because coworkers were too busy trying not to stare at my white streaks to even notice I had a cold sore.

Rumpty Dumpty

It was inevitable that I would eventually write about poop.  

After all, the word is part of the name of my blog.  I have written about periods here, and surgery here, and gas here; but only touched on the “poop” subject here.

However, this story rocketed to the top of my “stuff to blog about” list when my husband called me at work with a tale that needed to be told. 

Apparently there’s a light out in the bathroom he normally uses at work.  He found that out when he went to use the facilities and there was no response when he flicked the light switch.

Since he had to go, however, and since he was already there (and his bladder somehow recognized that he was near a toilet) he needed to use THAT bathroom.  Right then.  Immediately.  Thinking quickly, he whipped out his trusty 3G Droid smart phone, upon which his thoughtful wife (that’s me) had installed a flashlight app.  Thanks to the bright light of his phone screen, he was able to find the toilet stall in the dark, locate the bowl, remember where everything was and tidy up accordingly, all by holding the phone with its handy flashlight under his chin.

like this. except on your phone.

That day, we had a good laugh over this when he called me to tell me the story and thank me for the app.

Things deteriorated a few days later.  Mr. Forgetful waited until it was almost too late to make his frantic morning jog to the same bathroom referenced above.  This time, however, he was racing against a couple cups of my strong coffee and his morning bran.  He grabbed his phone almost as an afterthought on the off chance he needed to make a phone call, text someone, check the Cubs standings, or for the flashlight app if by some strange circumstance the bathroom light was still out. 

It was.

That’s fine, he thinks, as he struggles to unbuckle and unzip quickly, as he ran in the general direction of the stall door.  I have my fancy phone with the flashlight app.

However, for some reason, despite repeated, desperate attempts to pull up the flashlight app, the app has disappeared and due to extreme gastrointestinal pressure, he gave up trying to get it to work and attempted to go it alone, in the dark.  In all the fumbling with his smart phone trying to get the app to work, though, he has waited a little bit, a tiny bit, a hair too late to get his pants down fully.

It should be noted that on the best of days, he is not Mr. Technology.  Under pressure, however, his difficulty with smart phones is exponentially worse. 

If this were a bad script, I would at this point write “hilarity ensues” but in all actuality he didn't find this at all hilarious, as he was forced to go to the bathroom in the dark, then attempt to clean up after himself in the dark.  Between you and me, reader, he has a difficult enough time when it’s his OWN bathroom, with sufficient lighting to rival the sun and a brand new container of baby wipes. 

In the dark, cold, empty bathroom at work, he does the best he can under the third world circumstances. 

He is forced to make the drive of shame home and change pants, losing yet another pair of undershorts to such an ordeal which, praise God, seldom occurs.

Kids, need a gift idea for Dad for Father's Day?

Luckily, the badly mutilated underwear in question went directly into the garbage because otherwise if yours truly was sorting the white clothes I would have assumed he came face to face with a Yeti.

sort of like this one, which would make ANYONE crap their pants.

Later, he also told me that the majority of the bathroom accident from hell occurred because of two things:  a) the fact that he fucked around so long trying to get his flashlight app to work that he almost lost control right then and there on the floor and b) because of the low lighting from his cell phone screen he sat down on the bowl at the wrong angle and needless to say, not all the “kids” got dropped off at the pool.

He showered four or five times that night, just to make sure.

A few days ago, he visited the same washroom, which now has a working light and Joe was not only able to seat himself comfortably at the correct angle, but also have sufficient light with which to cleanse himself afterward.

 Lucky for him and his underwear drawer.  (and me, and probably the Yeti too.)

Snarky McSnarkster. A/k/a I'm Grateful.

(our last prompt in Prompt Club was to write 1000 words starting with the words, "I'm grateful.")

I’m grateful, truly I am.  Roof over our heads, food on the table, money to pay the bills and from time to time visit a fancy restaurant like Chipotle or Granite City.  I have three healthy kids, a beautiful granddaughter and a husband who still wants to hold my hand all the time.  I have been on the opposite end of the financial and romantic spectrum, so suffice it to say I know whereof I speak.

I’m also grateful for things other people might not think of as worthy of appreciation—for instance, my gift of sarcasm.  So when we drew the prompt where you had to start a story with the words “I’m grateful”, I immediately snarked it up.

I’m grateful that years ago before a doctor’s appointment, I was able to help my middle daughter learn to pronounce “vaginal” correctly without laughing. 

I like to think I spared her the embarrassment I endured when my 7^th grade science teacher asked our class what the hangy thing in the back of the throat is called. 

Turns out “vulva” was not the answer he was searching for.  That day, I comforted my 12 year old self with the thought that I didn’t need social acceptance and popularity anyway. 

Fast forward 35 years, and guess what…that social acceptance and popularity thing is on its way because my youngest daughter just told me that in another week or so her six new puppies will be winged.  If that’s the case we’ll all be so popular we’ll have to move.  I’m grateful I have days off coming because puppies are a lot of work to begin with, but flying puppies and a nine month old—that’s a recipe for disaster. 

I’m grateful for the fact that I got shingles right before my daughter’s 21^st birthday, so that I was forced to cancel plans to take my granddaughter for the weekend like I had promised months prior so she could celebrate.  I’m also grateful that I didn’t have to worry about sleeping while I was suffering with that wretched condition, because that gave me plenty of time to worry about a worrisome secondary rash and the mushroom of a cold sore on my lip.  It also gave me extra time to drunk-google late at night terms like “duration of shingles” or “shingles rash” or “should you drink when you have shingles” or my personal favorite, “how many people die per year from shingles”. 

Actual shingles that were on my back.
ps. Good news.  I didn't die.  But it sure did burn. 

 

I’m also really, truly grateful that when I finally was able to give my husband the seductive come-hither green light after the whole shingles/cold sore fiasco, Aunt Flo decided to come for an extended visit.  She didn’t just bring an overnight bag like she normally did but in fact the biggest, bulkiest suitcases she owned and jammed them in my uterus but good.  I’m plotting her demise and she will be grateful when her death finally arrives.

I’m grateful for the snowfall that prevented our family from a 2 hour drive into Plainfield on New Year’s Day for a delayed Christmas celebration to see family I don’t see often.  I hadn’t gone grocery shopping because I knew we’d be in Plainfield, so there was hardly anything edible in the house.  However, it’s good to experience true hunger once in a while.  Thankfully we were able to gag down all of those old, questionable leftovers and dry Christmas cookies whilst face-timing with the Plainfield crowd, watching everyone eat spinach dip and cheese potatoes.

I’m also really grateful they didn’t let me know ahead of time they were going to call, because it’s good for my family to see what I look like with no makeup, glasses on, and hair scraped into a brutally oily ponytail.  In case they weren’t buying all those gorgeous selfies I post online.   

I’m grateful for the guy who maintained a 4 inch distance between the front of his vehicle and the rear of mine the other night as we drove through blinding snow during rush hour.  Your thoughtlessness kept my mind off of how slick the roads were that night.  Especially helpful was the rage that kept me warm all the way home.

And speaking of slick, I’m grateful for the Kenyan sprinter masquerading as our black lab.  It’s good to test my own speed slalom skills in the back yard from time to time while being dragged behind a speedboat of a dog.  It keeps me limber.  He also helps me keep the ligaments in my shoulders stretched as he sprints off the icy back porch, yanking me with him.

And with all the things I have to be grateful for, I need to stay in the best shape possible.

The Smoky Eye

On cold days like the ones this past weekend, when it’s so bone-chilling, teeth-chattering cold, there is one thing you can do that really, really feels wonderful.  (No, not that.   That’s a whole different post.)

Take a hot bath.  Soak.  While the bath is pouring and you see steam curling out from under the bathroom door, take time to make a cup of hot tea in your favorite mug.  Put a little sugar in it.  I did that and it was a brilliant idea.  When I got out I was squeaky clean and warmed up, had comfortable sweats to put on and an afternoon that stretched out in front of me.  With a manuscript to work on and blog posts to address, that was an excellent thing.

I love coconut oil and to that end slathered some on my feet before putting on my cushy socks, then on my hands and arms, and hey, since I was going to stay in, I put a little on my face as moisturizer and brought that up into my hairline for a little extra shine. 

 Some days are good for trying out a new smoky eye look.  I thought that day would be one of those days.  I had purchased a beautiful muted violet color of eye shadow and our neighbor who represents MAC makeup had sent home some mauve eyeliner, and since I had nowhere to go, I applied eyeliner where I never had before.  I was going to wear glasses all day anyway, so if I emphasized my eyes a little more, it wouldn’t really matter.

except a lot darker.

Also experimented with coloring in my brows a lot little.  Going for a little bit of a Sandra Bullock look.

It was striking.  A lot darker than I thought, though.  Good thing I hadn’t planned on going anywhere, because I had 11:00 p.m. makeup at 11:00 a.m.

I checked Facebook, Pinterest, and my AOL account, then checked them again just in case something new and exciting had shown up.

It hadn’t.  Time to get to work on writing.

Attention deficit disorder kicks in and within ten minutes of writing I had the bright idea that now would be a good time to do the exchange I needed to do at the department store.  It was cold, sure.  But I was already dressed warmly!  I was showered, had shoes on and more importantly, had some extra time to do the exchange.   We needed milk anyway.  I decided instead of having to deal with fogged up glasses I’d wear my contacts.

In addition to having ADHD, apparently I also have a faulty memory.

After making an even exchange at the store, I also addressed with the returns clerk the fact that I didn’t get the 15% discount that I was supposed to.

To make things easier, she refunded the entire thing and then resold it back to me, and somehow instead of a little 15% discount, she handed me a gift card for $24.  I tried to explain to her the error in her thinking.  I really did. I’m maternal.  Patient.  Kind.   Apparently it was a little too mathematically challenging, and as she explained to me condescendingly, the cash register is never wrong.

 So, store which shall not be named, thanks for the extra Christmas money and hey, I tried to get your employee’s drawer to balance but she wouldn’t listen to me.

I give up and leave with a gift card of $24.22.  She sends my daughter a sympathetic look as we leave the store.

Daughter and I drive on to another store to pick up milk, Coke, and two frozen pizzas and some ice cream to get us through the afternoon.

It’s not until later on the way home that I check the rearview mirror and realize that because I put in my contacts, everyone could see that smoky eye I worked so hard on in the privacy of my bathroom.  In fact, thanks to the sun’s harsh rays, I look like a cold raccoon.  My cool factor, already at an all time low, drops even lower.

I then realize with a sinking heart that my stay-at-home hair, which actually looked like it had a lot of coconut oil in it and not the little bit I thought, was still in the just-showered clip I threw it up in.  Oily strands were hanging down to attractively frame the special violet eye makeup. 

That’s just great. 

But I had planned on staying at home.  Perhaps what I needed to do was slow down and look in the mirror before I left the house to make sure the few people who would see me on this cold day wouldn’t run away screaming.  Maybe slap on a hat?

The realization stuns me, because I then understand why the girl at Kohl’s gave me back the extra money.  It was because she felt sorry for me.  Look at her.  Poor thing.  Doesn’t get out much, with that oily hair, and certainly doesn’t know how to apply eye makeup.

I think I’ll buy a nice hat with that money.  For sure some good makeup remover.