Terrification

I just picked up line one and to my surprise the phone is ringing as if I had called out. A bit dumbfounded I said nothing and waited to see what happened. Suddenly two voices start conversing in very heavy African American speech patterns. I couldn't really make out much of the conversation except for that one guy was complaining to the other about being on hold, "the muth-ah-fuckuzs had me on hold fo 15 minutes." Back and forth back and forth, unintelligible but what I construed to be a hostile tone. I just listened.

I listened because as you may have read, I served on a jury earlier this summer, and in my capacity as a juror I also served as the foreman and was responsible for declaring a man guilty of cocaine trafficking. During the case, we listened to a lot of wiretaps between drug dealers that I have to say sounded a lot like the interchange happening on the phone. Now I'm not saying these guys were drug dealers, their case had something to do with property ownership, but I started to get nervous. The reason I was nervous? Well during voir dire (jury selection) the DA asked me, in front of the entire court room including the defendant, my name and occupation, and of course I told her. As the first potential juror questioned, I had no idea what the case was about, but as the facts came out, having given my exact occupation and place of employment I did start to become a little nervous about finding an interstate drug trafficker (10lbs of cocaine) guilty with him knowing exactly where I worked.

So, I have to admit I felt that tingle of imminent doom creeping up my neck. It really would be just my luck to have one of the most humorous moments of my short life come back to be the cause of the end of it. Yes, I'm paranoid, I recognize this, but dammit wouldn't you be, just a little?!