It Was Our Duty To Please That Jury

Long before Reality TV made it cool, the courts system has been shoving randomly-selected strangers into confined spaces and seeing "what would happen".  However, since the results have always been unimaginably boring, jury duty has yet to be picked up by a network.  In order to secure 8-12 unbiased souls to judge the fractures of society, hundreds must be assembled.  But only a few will be needed as actual jurors.  All in all, being on jury duty is like being a part of Gideon's army, where doing something as inconsequential as drinking water the wrong way will earn you an early trip home.

The best part of being on jury duty are the long lunch breaks and its proximity to Chinatown.  Both days we indulged our eternal bánh mì craving at the Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich.  Newly hip, the folks at SVS are enjoying a big uptick in business and are doubling the size of their storefront and doing some minor renovations.  Besides the expected construction workers, the lunchtime crowd now also includes a steady stream of SoHo fasionistés with gold-rimmed aviators and crusty-eyed NYU wakënbakers that mutter 'wait, is this it?' as they slightly walk past their objective.  The menu at SVS has been updated, but the standard pork special (#1) and tofu (#10) still reign supreme.  The curry tofu (#12) is worth trying, but the lemongrass tofu (#11) and fish (#6) are not.  We can agree with their billing as the best bánh mì place in town, but if they even want to gaze at the knees of NOLA masters like Pho Tau Bay they will have to stop using the ubiquitous NYC hoagie rolls sometimes and contract out some real Vietnamese baguettes.

Everyone in the jury room is warned that they will have to serve at least two days in the general pool, and possibly 1(one) trial.  We were only taken into one potential juror room with 18 others.  We had to fill out a questionnaire and answer questions asked by name-mispronouncing lawyers who had trouble differentiating between civil liability and criminal guilt.  If you don't want to be selected to an actual trial (and you don't), the secret is to act like you have something better to do.  Whenever you aren't being addressed, you should read a book with a title people don't understand.  Then, only the retirees and civil servants will be selected for the trial, and you can go home.  Both days we were let out from the general pool by 3:30, and now we will not have to return for at least 6 years.