Thursday, April 29, 2010

I May Have Failed To Mention

That I've been called for jury duty.

Yes.

Right now.

First, let me tell you all that I would (in theory) love to serve.

For 100% real. I'm all over it like white on rice (white rice that is).

Second, let me tell you that I've been called to serve 4 times since Kid was born (4!).

In Michigan (first 3) I was called to sit on the county and federal court juries.

Each time I happened to have a baby and I was able to call (an actual person) and explain that I was a breastfeeding new mom and they pulled me out and put me back at the bottom of their pool.

Good.

Well, this time no one answers the damn phone. I can't possibly serve on Thursday May 13th because... #1 I have no one to watch Baby. #2 I have to get Kid to school 15 minutes AFTER duty starts. #3 I have to watch the baby. #4 I have no co-parent to call in sick and cover for me. #4 I can't hire a sitter (even if I had one) to watch all those kids for $12/day. #5 We're moving.

Again, no one will answer my messages or pick up the phone despite saying specifically that you can reach them after 10AM.

Of course I may go down to the court house tomorrow morning at 9 AM to present my excuses before the judge. Sadly, again, see reasons #1-#4.

I really don't need this extra stress right now.

Not with our backyard neighbors cutting down trees (didn't mean it!) and knocking down our privacy fence (so sorry!) while they build a fucking garage WHILE MY HOUSE IS ON THE MARKET (no, no, don't worry about me).

And on top of all of that I found out yesterday that American Girl retired Kirsten Larson without any fan fair in January. People... I called Mr F and said "I'm having the worst day of my life... Kirsten Larson was retired." And he said "I thought something horrible happened." And I said "Did you hear me?! Something horrible did happen!!." This will be all over your heads but suffice it to say (that exactly an hour later I got my period) that if I were to get an American Girl doll I would certainly get the Norwegian Pioneer doll... OBVIOUSLY. If you know me at all you would know that. Come on! She had a rolling pin for God's sakes!

Okay so after all that I still have to deal with the whole jury duty nightmare.

My plan is to haul Baby down there with me this afternoon as soon as the baby (confusing right with the whole Baby/baby thing... oh anonymity!) goes home. This will help to illustrate my point (yes?!) and hopefully some kindly person will take pity on me and help me. If not at least I'll have some kind of a practice run for tomorrow when I will do it all over again (so fun to try and entertain a 3 year old while waiting for your turn to present your excuse with 500 other people).

Of course, I could just risk it and hope my group is dismissed and/or pay the $50 fine for non-compliance.

But if you know me at all you know that I am way to cheap to pay $50 when I can spend just as much in parking and worry trying to avoid it. Please.

13 comments:

Caren Drink said...

Seriously?!?! I'm LOLing! Blow it off. Write up a letter saying you are living in Michigan and that your Asheville residence is for sale, and that they can verify the sale with a simple google search. LIe, Lie, Lie. I know it goes against your grain and in another situation you would enjoy doing it, but you are WAY overthinking it.

You should have had Mr. F send a letter right away when you got the notice. (So it would have a Michigan postmark)

And- your neighbors are asshats. that is flipping rude.

Andrea said...

Here I thought I would be the only person in the world to want to do jury duty glad to know Im not the only one I wish they would summon me.I hope your neighbors are fixing your fence and how dangerous does this all sound trees falling fences down sounds like stress you dont need.

Mrs Furious said...

Caren,
I'm quickly getting on board. I just went down with Baby to talk to the Jury Clerk. She was not helpful literally said "lady I'm not a judge I can't excuse you." Okay, thanks?! She told me I had to come tomorrow and wait to present my excuse. Screw it. I'll just take the fine if I do end up getting called. I'm mailing my summons to Mr F for him to enclose with my excuse that I've moved and mail back from MI as if it had been forwarded there. That's all I can do now. I am absolutely not going to go wait all day tomorrow only to end up denied.


Andrea,
that is what I'm saying... when you know I have small kids... how about a heads up before you have guys up in trees with chain saws! Seriously. I really thought it was really inconsiderate even if the trees were on their property (questionable).

Deb said...

I like Caren's suggestion of the house sale note. Good luck! This is the last thing you need right now.

Liz said...

I hear you about American Girl. We got Kirsten two years ago and I noticed the very small print in the catalog last fall that she was being retired. I panicked thinking that I needed to buy everything up. I tried to feel my daughter out (7 years old) to see if there was anything she really wanted b/c Kirsten was going away. She responds, "let me think about it...even if I don't want anything now, you know, Santa can make anything". Oh shit...can't wait for December! Why do they do this to us? ~

P.O.M. said...

Maybe you can find the doll on eBay and pay 4X the price for her.

I would think it would be interesting to serve on a jury too. Although considering I am currently in a job that does jury research and consulting, I doubt they would ever pick me.

Robin said...

That is crazy!!! I've gotten jury summons three times since I had kids. In Texas, there is a form on the back of the summons that you fill out if you meet certain requirements that exempt you from service. One of which is taking care of small children. Then you just send the form back in or fax it. I thought it was that way everywhere.

Brenda said...

I could not believe that when I read it. I mean, seriously, what are the chances this would come up now for you? As for me, I have never been called for jury duty. Never. That's kinda weird, right? And I definitely vote, so I must be on a list somewhere... On another note, are you saying that your neighbors cut down trees that were not on their property?? And the branches are falling onto your property? Was the fence theirs? You have no idea how much that would fry me. I have a very, very low tolerance for that type of thing - even if the house wasn't on the market. They really are asshats.

Mr Furious said...

I was blowing a gasket in the office yesterday when Mrs F told me about the trees. After the involuntary tree slaughter at our Ann arbor house, I have a real strong objection to unnecessarily removing trees. Even if they were on their property I'd be annoyed, but all of this activity is taking place along the property line, and our property extends beyond the visual cues—so anything they mess with has the potential to be ours.

It sucks because the homeowner is a really nice guy, and his long term goal is admirable (a "green" fence of shrubery, etc). But we don't have eight years for that to fill in and look good. And there is a real disparity in the impact of this project—

They had to remove a full-grown tree and section of fence from our property last year because it was collapsing a retaining wall. From our slightly higher house/yard, that exposed a view of the back of several houses, and buildings blocks away. As well as the access alley where people park their cars.

From their side it exposes a view of our park-like side yard: thirty feet of grass then a dense thicket of trees/bushes. So they have no appreciation for the fact that this is a huge net negative for us.

I wish we had the $$$ to just have forty more feet of fence erected and they could do whatever the fuck they want over there without impacting us.

Mrs Furious said...

Robin,
I can't believe that there isn't an exception that my situation meets.... either that I'm a stay at home mom or that I'm moving. The jury clerk gave me the definite 'tude that those were not legitimate excuses. I'll take the fine.

Liz,
If only I had known I would of got her in December. Kid chose Kaya for Xmas and I don't know how I missed it (since I was on the AG site everyday in DEC) but I had no idea. Now bozos are getting $250 for her on ebay.
And Kid said the EXACT same thing last night about Santa!

P.O.M.,
yeah you're undoubtably exempt.

Oh, believe you me, I'm all over ebay.

Gigs,
you read it right. Admittedly our property line is confusing... maybe more reason to be REALLY sure it's your property. Our lot is irregularly shaped and dips into an exaggerated corner. They've cut trees and *replaced* fencing a good 3 feet into our property instead of on the line as it was. They are doing some necessary retaining wall repairs but not everything has been necessary and there has been some over stepping. YES, yesterday large branches were falling into our yard all around the playhouse with no notice. They did clean them up but I think a heads up would have been more than expected. They did apologize today after I got upset yesterday. And, yes, they are taking down (or letting fall down while they use their back hoe) a section of privacy paneling that is ON our property. I'm not sure what I can do about it. I said it needed to be fenced ASAP for my kids, which they will do with wire fencing... not the same... even if our old panels are old and not nice. It's a huge 6 foot privacy panel that blocks the view of their parking space. I'm mad but I also feel overwhelmed by it. Right now I left it that once they are done I'll let them know if I need privacy panels back up and I'll split the cost. They agreed but are definitely acting like their overall improvements in the *shared space* are a benefit to me. I think not. I didn't ask for this and we wouldn't have done it. Certainly don't need to now. Gah!!

Deb,
Done. I sent it to Mr F for him to mail with the MI postmark. It's my best bet.

Mrs Furious said...

Mr F,
"I wish we had the $$$ to just have forty more feet of fence "
word... and, yet, we don't.
plus if we end up selling the lot to a builder it would just be money thrown down the toilet.

Robin said...

I'm all pissed off for you that the clerk blew you off. I looked up our exemptions, because I was curious about how long I would be exempt.

This was #2 on the list of exemptions.

"*Has legal custody of a child younger than 15 years of age and the person’s service on the jury requires leaving the child without adequate supervision;"

Move to Texas!!! :)

Torey said...

I think it's time to burn the house down for the insurance money, legally change all of your families names to the blog names, and high-tail it to Canada.

Always good to have a plan.

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