The System Works

Yes, it's true. The system does work. And I can say this with absolute confidence and certainty because yesterday, when I was in the process of possibly being selected as a juror for a trial, the trial was resolved and I got to go home. The case was worked out by the lawyers during lunch (which was an hour longer than the judge had told us, but clearly those wheels of justice were in motion, so whatever) and when we got back to the courtroom, we aspiring jurors were told that everything had worked out (I suppose -- the former defendant, we were told, had gone "home") and the trial -- which the judge had told us would last at least 3 or 4 days -- ended before it started. So that meant that I didn't have to spend almost all of my Spring Break at the

Kalamazoo Court House. Which looks something like this. Just colder now. I guess when our friends at the Kalamazoo County Website took this picture, it was warmer outside (that was my way of crediting the picture without disrupting the flow of the prose, just in case I have any readers who are in to retracing my steps and all that).

And, if you were wondering, I spent most of that two-hour lunch in the juror waiting room staring at their strange collection of magazines. From the potential political agenda of National Review to the downright weirdness of having multiple issues of Cat Fancy.

So good work, American Judicial System. You let me go home early and I salute you for that.