A First Time For Everything

I am sitting in a jury room in Oakland. For the first time in my life I've actually been called to report for jury duty. Until today, I've always checked in the night before (and usually then again the morning of) and been told my service was at an end.

There have also been several times I've been summoned again in less than a year and gotten out of it thanks to recent 'service'. My favorite was a few years ago, not long after I moved from SF to Oakland, I got a jury summons from SF.

The summons was addressed to me in Oakland; the envelope had a large admonition to the USPS not to forward it out of county, but in their defense, it was SENT out of county by the court, not forwarded. I wrote 'see mailing address' on it and sent it back. I am convinced that someone in SF, on opening my reply, called someone at the court in Oakland... "Hey, summon this guy."

Happily, it had only been three months or so since I was last summoned in Alameda, so I just wrote the prior badge number on it and sent it back.

Good try, though.