I am a warrior of words. Yes, I fight them, cut them, make them bleed, and then put them into pretty paragraphs of purple paisley prose. Just like that.
But I also have a real life that pushes me and pulls me, makes me bleed, and do the thistly things that thoroughly threaten to make me poor and exhausted and eventually dead.
Yes, yesterday I had jury duty. In Denton.
I had to drive thirty miles on Interstate 35 only to get lost in downtown Denton looking for the county courthouse amidst construction barriers, curly-cue streets, and a GPS app on my phone that quit working just when I needed it most.
So, I finally find the proper place, find a parking space, stand in a long line to enter the building as the cold wind blew, and then negotiate a thorough near-strip-search security scan to get into that room full of potential jurors who fill all the seats and more. I felt a bit diabetically challenged, a little bit woozy. And then a woman behind me hits the floor from high blood pressure and has to be taken out by ambulance. We all have to wait for a longer time because of it, getting woozier all the while.
About 350 potential jurors for four jury pools that would need about 100 people to pick from. Of those, 48 would actually hear a case. So, all I had to do was sit and wait to find out that I was not picked. And I was released to go home, having earned six dollars for the day. Of course, they asked me if I wanted to donate it to a court-related charity. I did not. Dang! I earned that money!
And how, exactly, am I claiming to be a warrior of words with this essay? By taking this thistly experience and turning it into a blog post. A warrior fights his wars with the weapons he knows best.
