EVEN HATE ETERNAL COULDN’T SAVE ME FROM JURY DUTY

Earlier this month I recounted a humorous tale of my namesake getting stuck with jury duty, and revealed my own plans to avoid such a horrid fate this very week: I was going to wear a disgusting death metal shirt to jury selection. My thought process being that no lawyer would ever see a scumbag in such a shirt and want said scumbag on his or her jury. And even after Vince pointed out a flaw in my plan — “What if the defense attorney thinks you’ll be sympathetic to his client?” — I decided to stick with it, ’cause I assumed that if a defense attorney did make that assumption, so would the prosecutor, who would consequently have me dismissed.

So yesterday morning, I woke up, and did not shower, and did not shave, and did not brush my hair, and basically tried to look as gnarly as possible, and then I showed up for jury duty wearing this:

Now, I know it’s not the most offensive shirt ever, but keep in mind that this Hate Eternal tee is only not offensive relative to other metal tees. I didn’t think there was any way the norms would look at a demon palming Jesus’ skull and crushing it and think, “Gosh, he seems like a swell fellow.”

And, just to increase my chances, I told the lawyers and the judge that a) I had been the victim of a crime similar to the one for which the defendant would now be tried, and b) that I have a relative who is an Assistant District Attorney. Neither of these assertions were lies — they happen to be convenient facts which, I thought, would surely get me right the fuck off the hook.

But slowly, as myself and the other potential jurors were screened, I came to some pretty horrifying realizations:

• When the judge asked “Does everyone here speak English?” and no one answered, that’s not because everyone there spoke English — it’s because people who don’t speak English can’t understand the question “Does everyone here speak English?” That ended up eliminating a handful of other potential jurors.
• I was one of the only potential jurors with a college education.
• I was one of the only potential jurors with a high school education.
• I was one of the only potential jurors who understood the difference between the words “does” and “do.” As in, “Yes it does” versus “Yes it do.”
• I was one of the only potential jurors who has never been convicted of a misdemeanor. This includes an adorable, five-foot-one, thirty year old blonde woman who had been convicted of domestic abuse — in other words, she had beaten her husband, not the other way around.
• I was — and I have no idea how I, of all people, ended up in this situation — one of three potential jurors who had never been arrested for possession of illicit drugs or public intoxication.

So, you can see where this is going.

As you already know if you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook, my plan did not work. I totally got selected to be on a jury.

FUCK.

I don’t really have a moral to the story, other than “Don’t take any chances and count on a death metal shirt to save you from jury duty — just go with the sure bet and pretend to be a crazy racist or something.”

Because while I happen to think that Erik Rutan is a god, praying to him apparently does about as much as praying to a jar of mustard.

I knew I should have worn this shirt instead.

-AR