I got a jury duty summons last week. A jury duty summons! My county’s health department is sending out all of these notices: stay home! don’t be around people! definitely don’t be indoors with other people! And then also they send me a notice that I’m legally required to be indoors with lots of other people.
No thank you.
I had to schedule a six month follow up mammogram due to some abnormal results at my last one and after I made the appointment, I had a panic attack and then called back to cancel. Then I had a session with my therapist and talked through how putting myself at risk of missing early cancer detection was probably a worse risk than putting myself at risk of COVID by going to a medical facility. Probably?
And yet the county expects I’m somehow able to serve on jury duty when I’m barely able to get a cancer screening?
Also, why now universe? I have gotten exactly two jury duty summons’ in my life. In 47 years. And the third comes during a global pandemic?
How are we going around in the world as if everything is normal when nothing is normal and there’s a global pandemic and every interaction is a possible death sentence?
I went to my mammogram appointment yesterday (they think everything is fine) and there was so much traffic. People were everywhere. Every interaction a possible death sentence.
What’s wrong with us?
I checked the counties around mine and they are not conducting jury trials right now. If trials are so important, figure out how to do them over Zoom.
Anyway, I tried to find out what happens to me if I refuse to do it. Because I’m not going to do it. There’s absolutely no way I can do it. I spent the first six weeks of the pandemic unable to eat or sleep and threw up every single day (by which I mean I mostly had dry heaves since I wasn’t eating) and mostly spent my time hyperventilating.
But I don’t want to not do it and then get thrown in jail because that would definitely be worse in terms of possible COVID exposure inside a building. I’m willing to pay a fine though. Even a really large one.
In the tiny space they give you on the form to mail back (it’s a space for maybe five words; the form makes absolutely no sense), I said I couldn’t do it because of the panic attacks. I wouldn’t make a very good juror if I was hyperventilating and throwing up the whole time. I didn’t have enough room on the form to say all of that though so I typed it up on a piece of paper and taped it to the form.
I wrote that I literally haven’t been inside any buildings other than medical facilities since March 1st (this is true). I wanted to say that they were being reckless by forcing citizens to congregate together inside during a global pandemic that spreads through the air circulating in a building when people are talking. But I figured whoever was reading the form wouldn’t care about my more fundamental concerns.
So now I wait. Well, wait and have more panic attacks. And make apocalypse purchases. Who would have thought that one day we’d be shopping at Bloomingdale’s for face shields, but here we are.