Oh Jury Duty...
During the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Anna, I got a letter in the mail from the municipal court calling me for jury duty. I was a little frustrated because I planned on exclusively breast feeding Anna and didn't want to introduce bottles until after she was a couple weeks old. So I went online to research breastfeeding laws for jury duty and was relieved to see that I legally would be excused. After calling a court clerk, I was told that as long as I got my explanation notarized I would be excused. I thought it was funny that if you were doing jury duty all you needed to do was fill out a form but if you were excusing yourself for whatever important reason you had to get notarized. But oh well lol.
I had never been notarized before as far as I had known. I knew what a notary was but had no idea how to get one or how much they costed. My mother knew of one that only charged a few dollars but by that point I had already had Anna. So when she was three days old, we all piled into my mother's van (My mom, Alan, Anna, Uncle Kalvin and Aunt April) and she took us to this notary located somewhere downtown. She thought she had an idea of where it was but told me that she might need to call my father (Great). Well, in our town pretty much all of the downtown is one-way streets so you should normally KNOW where your destination is. Or you might drive around forever trying to find it.
Guess what we did... :)
Anna was jaundiced and hungry, making her very angry, and she wanted to get out of her carseat, Alan wanted to go play at Grandma's house lol, Uncle Kalvin was bored and hungry. Oh yeah it was fun! Finally after driving around for quite some time, we found the place. So I took a fussing Anna in, praying that this notary was an unstanding woman, and was pleased when it was not only a nice, understnding lady but the process itself only takes a few seconds. We then spent the next hour in the van with me nursing Anna and kids complaining like crazy lol! But I was okay with it because I knew that at least jury duty would not be in my future.
Flash forward to last week. I receive another letter from the municipal court, thanking me for joining jury duty and fufilling my duty as a citizen. It invited me to a meeting sometime this week and told me I would qualify for jury duty until next fall. Umm, what???? And why then did I go through all that work just a day out of the hospital? Needless to say, I was a little confused and upset. It was too late to call the courthouse so I was left to stew about it the whole night. Ugh. :) The next morning before I called the courthouse, I posted this status on my Facebook page:
Got scheduled for jury duty this year, even though I spoke with an official about being postpartum and needing to breastfeed then went through the whole notary process so I wouldn't have to. Grrr... So I guess I just BRING my breast feeding child with me? Because she will not take that many bottles in one day. Ugh lol so frustrating!
Several friends commented on this post, urging me to not just bring Anna with me and to call because I legally should be excused due to the breast feeding laws. I hadn't really been planning on bringing her, I was just using sarcasm to display my frustration over the whole situation. I reassured my friends and told them I would keep them updated. Then I called the court clerk.
His name was Brian, I think. I told him I was calling about jury duty right away because I figured he took alot more calls about people's own court dates lol. I was new at this stuff, so I wanted to make sure to cover all basics. :P He asked for my full name and when I told him, he immeadiately asked if I received a letter. Chuckling at his sudden psychic ability, I told him that I had. He lauged and told me that I was actually coming up on his computer as excused until next fall. Apparently there was a computer glitch in the system that sent EVERYONE acceptance letters, whether you were excused from jury duty or not. He had already received ten calls about the same thing. At 8:30 in the morning lol. Feeling bad for him, I thanked him and told him to have a good day. Poor guy! :)
So municipal court I went through all of that for you this year, how about maybe giving me a break and NOT sending me another jury duty notice next year? Because I will still be breast feeding most likely and do not want to go through any of that again lol! :) Thanks!
Side note: I was actually breast feeding the whole time I wrote this post! :D
I had never been notarized before as far as I had known. I knew what a notary was but had no idea how to get one or how much they costed. My mother knew of one that only charged a few dollars but by that point I had already had Anna. So when she was three days old, we all piled into my mother's van (My mom, Alan, Anna, Uncle Kalvin and Aunt April) and she took us to this notary located somewhere downtown. She thought she had an idea of where it was but told me that she might need to call my father (Great). Well, in our town pretty much all of the downtown is one-way streets so you should normally KNOW where your destination is. Or you might drive around forever trying to find it.
Guess what we did... :)
Anna was jaundiced and hungry, making her very angry, and she wanted to get out of her carseat, Alan wanted to go play at Grandma's house lol, Uncle Kalvin was bored and hungry. Oh yeah it was fun! Finally after driving around for quite some time, we found the place. So I took a fussing Anna in, praying that this notary was an unstanding woman, and was pleased when it was not only a nice, understnding lady but the process itself only takes a few seconds. We then spent the next hour in the van with me nursing Anna and kids complaining like crazy lol! But I was okay with it because I knew that at least jury duty would not be in my future.
Flash forward to last week. I receive another letter from the municipal court, thanking me for joining jury duty and fufilling my duty as a citizen. It invited me to a meeting sometime this week and told me I would qualify for jury duty until next fall. Umm, what???? And why then did I go through all that work just a day out of the hospital? Needless to say, I was a little confused and upset. It was too late to call the courthouse so I was left to stew about it the whole night. Ugh. :) The next morning before I called the courthouse, I posted this status on my Facebook page:
Got scheduled for jury duty this year, even though I spoke with an official about being postpartum and needing to breastfeed then went through the whole notary process so I wouldn't have to. Grrr... So I guess I just BRING my breast feeding child with me? Because she will not take that many bottles in one day. Ugh lol so frustrating!
Several friends commented on this post, urging me to not just bring Anna with me and to call because I legally should be excused due to the breast feeding laws. I hadn't really been planning on bringing her, I was just using sarcasm to display my frustration over the whole situation. I reassured my friends and told them I would keep them updated. Then I called the court clerk.
His name was Brian, I think. I told him I was calling about jury duty right away because I figured he took alot more calls about people's own court dates lol. I was new at this stuff, so I wanted to make sure to cover all basics. :P He asked for my full name and when I told him, he immeadiately asked if I received a letter. Chuckling at his sudden psychic ability, I told him that I had. He lauged and told me that I was actually coming up on his computer as excused until next fall. Apparently there was a computer glitch in the system that sent EVERYONE acceptance letters, whether you were excused from jury duty or not. He had already received ten calls about the same thing. At 8:30 in the morning lol. Feeling bad for him, I thanked him and told him to have a good day. Poor guy! :)
So municipal court I went through all of that for you this year, how about maybe giving me a break and NOT sending me another jury duty notice next year? Because I will still be breast feeding most likely and do not want to go through any of that again lol! :) Thanks!
Side note: I was actually breast feeding the whole time I wrote this post! :D
Comments
Post a Comment