Just is blind

..and terribly inconvenient.

Jury duty is something that we all have to do. I've done it, and lived to whine about it. Well, I got caught again. I received a summons and registered. It was even the same venue at the corner of Depressing and Hopeless in downtown LA that I had served before. But a dump in the hand is worth two in the bush, or something so I considered it to be not so bad. After all, my friend had to go from her place in Pasadena all the way out to San Fernando in the far Northwest San Fernando Valley, where they confiscated her salad fork as a deadly weapon. So it was the same routine: Monday, call in. Don't have to report. Tuesday, ditto. Wednesday, call in. Oh yes you're reporting. To the valley-dwelling fork-snatchers. (I have nothing against the SFV, but there's a courthouse 3 blocks from my house!) I look at the options for transportation: three freeways in my car, or two hours on the dreaded Metro.

I opted for the bus: I can just about face being driven to that back of beyond in the valley first thing in the AM, I can't possibly face driving there. Despite the fact that the Metro website's algorithms are apparently set up to get your destination with as few transfers as possible rather than the most direct route and it took hours, I wasn't sitting in my car grinding my gears and my molars. When I finally got to San Fernando I found it was actually kind of cute, far nicer than the traffic court on Washington. I had an indifferent bagel, Diet Coke, and games and books on my iPhone to pass the time, and possibilities for lunch that unlike Traffic court were unlikely to lead to, say, rabies.

I also made it into the courtroom, this time on a criminal case. I wasn't picked, which was fine. Even if it's my civic duty, I don't need that commute more that once..

Image: Boston.com