Your Mother Was A Hamster

Guess what I received in the mail yesterday? A jury summons. Yay. And, it wasn't the kind that has you call on a certain date and see if you're needed; it was the kind where you have to show up in person on such and such day. (Guess that's why they call it a summons, huh, Patty?) Oh, and it's for Superior Court. The one time my mom was on a jury at that courthouse, it was for a rape case. Ugh.

I've had jury duty twice: once for a civil case where a man was suing the owner of the car that rear-ended him on the freeway because his injuries kept him from working and doing things like play basketball with his kids. The car was driven by a teenager but the plaintiff was going after the father since the dad owned the car. (What kind of money could he have gotten if he sued the 17 year old driver?) The guy also claimed he wouldn't be able to participate in the upcoming LA Marathon because of the injuries he sustained in the accident. As soon as we all went in to the jury room to deliberate, everyone started laughing at the idea of this fat guy running a marathon. It would be like me announcing I was going to run a mile around the track tomorrow. You would all be rolling on the floor in hysterics. It seemed very unlikely this guy even owned a pair of running shoes, let alone was ever going to run 26 miles. There were other factors involved, like a workers' comp doctor who seemed kind of shady and did not convince us the marathon-er was truly hurt when his car was rear-ended, and we ended up deciding that the guy did not have any lasting injuries from the accident so he was not entitled to any money from the father. [insert sound of gavel banging on desk here]

The other case was similar: a guy was suing a female driver who had bumped him with her car in a mall parking lot while he was bending over to put down traffic cones or something, and hit him in the butt. He wasn't seriously injured when it happened but he wanted damages for whatever injuries he was claiming he still had. A physician whose name was pronounced "kee-ster" was brought in to refute the testimony of the doctor for the guy who had been hit in the hiney, so as soon as we got in to the jury room, we were all giggling over that. We didn't award that plaintiff any money since we didn't believe his keester or any other body parts had suffered any longterm injuries from being hit by the car.

Anyway, the whole point of this long story is that I was able to go online and postpone my jury service until September. That's reason #72 why I love the interwebs.

I have two giveaways to tell you about. But, really, you can skip entering them since I would love to win both, and with less participants, my chances of winning will be better.

Over at doe-c-doe, you can win one of G's sweet little embroidered dresses.

Urban Threads is having a Crafty Love Giveaway and the prizes are pretty nifty (an embroidered tote bag, some fabric, a crafty bunny, and a $100 gift certificate) . There are four questions to answer, but never fear. You only need to answer at least one question to get in on the giveaway.

Thanks to the contest questions, (one is What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?), I've been watching clips from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on You Tube. I can remember my mom taking my sister and me to see some Burt Reynolds movie in 1975, and since we arrived really early for it, we went into the theatre where the Holy Grail was already playing and we sat down, not knowing anything about Monty Python. The movie was half over so we had no idea what was going on, but when I watched the knights "riding" across the screen and realized they were using coconuts to make the sound of horses' hooves, I decided it was one of the funniest movies ever I had ever seen. We came in right before the killer rabbit scene.