LOST ... where do I begin?

I want to say that last night's episode answered a lot of questions --- as promised by the writers/ABC/Powers That Be -- that this season would start answering more questions to satisfy you loyal viewers.

Er, I mean, us loyal viewers.

But honestly, while I got answers, I also got questions.

More questions.

ATTN LOST PEOPLE: I DON'T WANT MORE QUESTIONS!!!!

In the words of the immortal Paula Abdul, I take two steps forward... I take two steps back.

And that of course would logically mean... I'm still in the same place: CONFUSED!

SO. Please let's talk about Lost right now.

Somebody. Anybody?

Like, WHO IS THE BAD GUY?!

Widmore?

Ben?

Faraday's mom/Eloise Hawkings/The Old Dead Maid from "The Others" <-- the Nicole Kidman movie about dead people. (Yeah, they were already dead, sorry if I ruined the ending). And is that a coincidence that the chick from a movie named "The Others" is also affiliated with a group called "The Others"??

What about Cesar? Is he important? Or just a character they're using to conveniently remind you of old plot points?

I don't think I'm smart enough for this kind of television!

And, any remote possibility there is room in this JJ Abrams show for other JJ Abrams classic characters to appear? I mean, he's the brains behind "Alias", "Fringe", "Felicity" even, and the last Mission: Impossible movie, and the upcoming Star Trek prequel. Like, how cool would it be if superspy Sydney Bristow showed up in a flashback? Or if it turned out Felicity Porter was also Jack & Claire's sister and now going to Oxford to study with Farady? Or that Dr. Bishop from Fringe remembers he used to work for Dharma too??

OK.

Go ahead. Talk amongst yourselves.

I promise not to interrupt with stupid questions.

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

HUH?

Honestly, I've never ever really fully comprehended what in heck this means.

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

HUH? I mean, seriously. HUH?

So, wait. If I see an object in this mirror and think it's over there, it's actually not.

It's closer to being here than I actually think.

This is so baffling in one specific instant nearly every day of my life: when I'm backing up the car.

SO. If I am backing up, and in that mirror I can see the distance between my car and that car, I should always assume I am actually closer than I think. Right?

SO. If I am backing up, and I can still see a space between the two cars... is it possible that even though I see a space, that I've actually already hit the other car?

Please don't try and explain.

Just let me stay blissfully confused on this matter. I always contort myself around and take an

actual look out the window anyhow.

I'd rather have a crick in my neck than use that stupid confusing mirror.

Toni needs...

Got this one today off of Facebook, and of course I'm not gonna tag anyone.

Directions:

1. Google “[your first name] needs” (use the quotation marks)

2. Share the first 10 results.

3. That's it.

Toni needs careful, daily monitoring and meticulous veterinary care.

Toni needs a predictable routine in a safe and comfortable environment

Toni needs to do a Live Concert DVD which would potentially be a 5 star best seller

Toni needs surgery and a new club

Toni needs luck to prove doubters wrong

Toni needs to prove he deserves to stay.

Toni needs to cut a 6 1/4 foot board into 4 equal pieces.

Toni needs to go to Nassau and do the feeding scuba with the reef sharks.

Toni needs therapy.

Toni needs help!!!

Amazing! Some of it actually is relevant and makes sense!

SEE!! I just knew the whole world revolved around me.

My mom was so wrong.

Thanks Susie Flora from Maryland for the tip!

Funniest Thing I Just Heard

Random Co-worker just walked in here right now while Thinking Of You was playing and said,
"Oh. This is Katy Perry?"


Me: Uh... yeah....?

Random Co-worker: Damn. I came in here coz I was wondering who it was.

(a beat)

Random Co-worker: I thought it was the Jonas Brothers.


(Riotous laughter erupts. Mainly from me.)



(Random co-worker sullenly begins to exit)


Random Co-worker: This goes nowhere.





HAHAHA PUHLEEZ! The entire world must share in this comedy.

Enjoy.

Soap Opera Resurrection

So, they killed off My Actor Friend Justin.

Yes, My Actor Friend Justin -- the one that I love to talk about because he's been on One Life To Live for the last few months playing Wes Granger. If you read this blog because you are bored/like the ravings of a crazy person/feel englightened/etc., then you've heard plenty about My Actor Friend Justin here, and here, here, and also here.




And now he's dead. Wes, that is.


They killed him off in a ploy to set off a whole serial killer storyline.


I'm pissed.

Well, obviously. The story is getting somewhat interesting (in that melodramatic, corny way only a soap opera can deliver) but now I have to watch my beautiful talented friend play a corpse in the meantime.


No way to make use of his many theatrical talents. And he never got a chance to sing one of OLTL's infamous random musical numbers. GAH! You're all fools, ABC! FOOLS YOU ARE!

One of his many great soap operatic moments, when he played Wes as a living person:

How is a person to be resurrected?? Especially when he's found in a bed with a knife sticking out of the middle of his chest, and everyone's been walking around corpse in the bed in middle of this hotel room with this knife hanging out for like hours (days) now.

He is so obviously dead.

But this is SOAP OPERA LAND, folks! So obviously, Wes will be back.

The question is ... HOW?!

I am asking YOU, yes, YOU, gentle reader. Help me concoct a brilliant way to bring such a person back to life. A soap opera character who was stabbed to death, and has had the knife sticking out of his chest for four to five days now. I have been racking my brain for a brilliant plot that would explain that all away and bring Wes back to life, and My Actor Friend Justin back into my soap opera.

For now, I've got nothing.

I mean if Doctor Drake Ramoray can beat death, so can Wes Granger, Navy SEAL, bartender, and Friend Du Jour.

Stray Cat(s)

My mother is the lady who composts and throws stale bread on the patio for the birds (squirrels).

A lonely cat started appearing in her backyard about the same time of day... and pretty soon a little bit of an attachment formed. In the morning when she'd be tossing stuff out the back door, the cat would already waiting.



Fast-forward. Like a lot.


It is many years later, and the now-fat cat is still coming around. I was sitting by the window in my mother's kitchen over the weekend, when I realized this big fat cat was sitting on the deck staring up at me, real still, like a statue. The same cat. Now so fat, it had grown into two cats.

Yes, one stray cat has become two stray cats, practically identical, not just in color, but identical in overweight, overfed-by-scraps size.

My parents -- who never let us have pets when we were were kids -- now gleefully "ooh" and "aaah" when they find their little grey friends waiting for stale pizza crusts and rock-hard bagels. That look of expectant feline joy that screams "Feed me, stupid homeowner!" seems to entrance lonely retired folk like my mom & dad.


There's no fixing this situation, is there?


Like, obviously, because they've never been pet-owners did my little Filipino parents realize that it would not be a good idea to start randomly feeding the neighborhood strays. They've unwittingly "adopted" these two cats, who clearly don't have a real home. Or maybe every night they go home to someone's house where they feed them a meager amount of no-frills brand vittles, and are so amazed at how such little nutrition could miraculously turn out such massive animals.


OK, so obviously, it's all too late now. But are there like any actual laws about feeding someone else's pets when they show up at your doorstep? Should my parents have looked for a collar, tag, ID, something?

Like, at this point, do they bother looking for an owner, or do we treat these twin fat cats with the same lack of attachment that we'd accord to a rabbit or a deer?


I'm not sure if the answer is nothing. To like, not do anything.

But seriously, this feeding-the-random-strays nonsense is out of control!


I mean, for godssakes... they feed the cats!!!!


. . .AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN FEED ME!!!!

"The trousers like you, sir."

Alex, I'll take "Blog Titles" for $400, please!


The answer: "Random Thoughts and Stuff That Pops Out At Me"


Umm...mmm... "What... is.... the only things that will stand out to me while watching Idol?"


Correct!



Yay. Coz that's all I have to offer.


Three rounds of 12 contestants each. It'll be like three separate mini-Idols. Twelve different kids, every week over the next 3 weeks, most of whom I've never seen before bc of Idol's style of need-to-know-basis storytelling. We know we're meeting people for the first time, even thought we've begun falling in love with the folks they want us to fall in love with (Hi, Danny Goecke). Aaah, we're such puppets, and we don't seem to mind. That's what we have to look forward to over the next three months of our lives. Being yanked around like marionettes by the Idol producers and Seacrest toying with our emotions by torturing us to sit thru the breaks.

So to handle all these new faces being thrust at us over the next few weeks, I will be doing what I do best with my TiVo: fast-forwarding.

That's how I combat the feeling of being controlled by the Idol Empire. I watch on my own terms and fast forward at will. God help us all if I actually catch something noteworthy.


So to handle the random free-flow of American Idol commentary, here are the bullet points:

• Paula and the first reminder this season of why she should be banned from live TV happen right at 8:01PM EST. The show has barely started.
  


• Randy says: "I like the trousers." And Jackie says: "The trousers like you, sir." Please America, let her go home. We want a singing idol. Not a girl with plastic pants who apparently have a thing for Randy Jackson .
  


• Ricky who? Forgettable yes. Did Simon say that or did I just think that out loud?
  


• Fast forward fast forward fast forward.... OOPS! OK screechy blonde chick with pink streaks. Blah. Even at a fast speed, the judges seem happy, but it's only the first episode, I'll deal with knowing her if she's still around in a month.
  


• OMG Paula. "Cute petite... yet so large." HUH?
  


• Poor Brent Keith and his technical difficulty. He thinks he's got 30 seconds to pull himself together then Seacrest is like, let's walk down these steps on live national TV and have you sing right now instead.
  


• "I definitely can see you as a country artist." REALLY PAULA? What gave it away?
  


• Did they always have this American Idol Friends & Family Nook?
  


• Stevie Wright... uhhh... I heard 2 seconds and kept fast forwarding. Ugh. Listening to the judges is so awkward, possibly even more awkward than her actually singing, but she had it coming.
  


• ANOOP! I love that he could be the unexpected romantic crooner. Eyebrows need to be controlled though. Have any American-Asian-Indians cracked the pop culture scene yet? I mean, aside from Padma Lakshmi, Kumar/Dr. Kutner, and the dude that plays Sayid? I hope he hangs in there, despite now being dubbed Anoop-Dawg. He can at least get the icky taste of Sanjaya out of our mouths. Hah.
  


• Cute girl in a hat, kinda reminds me of Mandy Moore. Sounds like "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic". I love this song, please don't do a crappy job on this song, Mandywannabe. ... ... ugh... uhhhh... gaaaahhh... what is she doing??? Make it stop! Make it stop! Kara, make her cry! Wah. Someone make her cry, please! "Your ... phrasing... was weird." Paula, your talking is weird. Oh America, you think she's cute, you're gonna keep her, aren't you? Gah.
  


• Michael Sarver. I don't know if I could pick him out of a lineup.
  


• Shoot, I am caught up with live TV. I will go and read a book or something. Be back....
  


• "Ugh, I sat on the hard part." The only notable thing that happened just now. Well aside from Sara Bareilles totally getting the diss.
  
  
• Awww... somewhere Michael Jackson is rolling over in the coffin he sleeps in. Poor guy, I hope America spares him somehow.
  
  
• GAH caught up to Live TV again. To be continued..... Don't think I can watch the Del Toro Debacle in real time.

Non-whitening Toothpaste

Would you buy it?

Non-whitening toothpaste, that is.

Seriously, if the product says, "Great mint taste and new non-whitening formula!"

I wouldn't.


Next time you're brushing your teeth (and hey, if you're doing it right at this moment, kudos to you, crazy multi-tasking hygenic computer user, you! )... take a look at the tube.

It says it's one of them there newfangled "whitening" toothpastes, don't it?
When did that happen? That the whitening agent was discovered by man, and manufactured into a dry minty paste form? The late 80's? Early 90's?

Maybe I'm remembering my childhood all wrong (like the way I recall those wintry days of walking ten miles to the bus in bare feet)... but I feel like aside from the fact that there were only like four brands of toothpaste (Crest. Colgate. Aim. And then later, the advent of the oh-so-fancy striped Aquafresh.)... that back then, toothpastes only promised (and delivered!) to do only one or two things. Provide freshness. Be minty. And on occasion, also provide Flouride (if you were into them expensive toothpastes).

Now toothpastes are doing everything short of preparing your taxes and disciplining your children. (Good thing toothpaste has a very patient demeanor.) They help you build tooth enamel. Get you desensitized to cold foods. Hot foods. Taste like bubblegum. Taste like vanilla. Taste like a vintage whiskey. Kill bacteria. Kill bacteria that has yet to be identified. Whiten your teeth to a glow-in-the-dark finish. Aside from making your mouth anti-bacterial, also anti-microbial. Keep your mouth anti-bacterial for hours. Days. Months. Make you less hungry. Make you tell the truth. And yes. Give you minty fresh breath.

But above all, most of them state the obvious. "Whitens teeth!"


Well, HECK I CERTAINLY HOPE SO!

Who wants to be the guy that makes the toothpaste that doesn't whiten teeth?? I mean, since the purpose of all toothpaste is to assist in cleaning your teeth, to some degree, by removing dirt from your teeth, you are essentially allowing the teeth to be whiter than they were when the food debris was still in your mouth. So basically, don't all toothpastes "whiten", more or less?

"Yeah. I can say for certain that we have flouride & have great minty flavor... but I don't know about this whitening nonsense. I've been using my product every day, five times a day for eleven years... and my teeth are ... well, I guess they're white. But not whiter than they used to be. At least I don't think so. Just leave it at Minty Taste! More flouride! Leave out the whitening part. I'm sure my toothpaste will sell just fine."

HAH. When there are thirty other boxes of toothpaste on the shelf, and the rest of them are telling me I'll be buying whitening action in a tube, why would I want to chance it with a toothpaste that may or may not do more than just clean my teeth??


So when do you think it started? When people realized that to sell more toothpaste, they needed to promise more whitening? Was there an actual invention of a whitening agent? I don't remember ever actually hearing it about it in the news. Maybe it got eclipsed in the headlines that day by the little girl in the well. Or the Bronco chase on the LA Freewway.


Maybe coz Baking Soda & Hydrogen Peroxide didn't need to be invented!!!!

Isn't that all it is?! Baking soda & peroxide???




So. With that in mind, I have a new wave of marketing genius that will sell more toothpaste than any human being has ever needed in one lifetime.

"Now with even MORE WHITENING POWER! And solves math problems!!!"




And every tube of toothpaste will come with a whole box of no-frills baking soda and a cheap solar calculator.

Why I BCC

An interesting debate comes up every now and again... a controversial debate that I unwittingly spark when I send out innocent little emails to a random group of people.

Today, needed to send an all-important missives to my colleagues about an upcoming event that I wanted to inform some people about. It was a message that I wanted to be short & sweet, and didn't require action other than showing up. Responding was optional.


So, I used BCC. The Blind Carbon Copy.

If you don't know what it is, it's the option in an email where instead of typing an address in the TO field... or the CC field... you type it in the BCC field.... and no name(s) show up in the received email.


Useful tool for listservs, solicitations, and (in my case) for discouraging rampant flooding of REPLY-ALL responses.


Because I have been on the receiving end of Reply-All. Both intended replies meant for the entire world to see, and accidental replies to all. Those second kind can be fun. And by fun, I mean both laugh-out-loud funny, and also painfully scathing and instantly regretted.

I learned my lesson long ago when I sent out some pithy joke that had a political leaning, to which my dad -- a man so conservative, he makes Rush Limbaugh look like a feminazi --thought it would be great to reply-all and share his markedly right-wing opinions for all the world to see.

Well, he pissed off my co-worker.

Apparently a cyber-pissing match further ensued outside the realms of the reply-all. It was a digital version of saying, "Wanna take this outside?" And I guess they did, because I didn't even know it was going on, until one day my dad said to me, "That guy you work with? He's a jerkoff."

Oooooof.



From that day on, I made a vow to never reply-all unless I personally knew every recipient, and unless what I had to say was relevant to all involved. I also take the time to delete individual names off the reply-all if I don't know the person.

[I also re-read through emails I'm forwarding to other people. Nothing worse than unintentionally passing on comments that were meant for your eyes only. A lot of legendary hate sprees have been borne from me seeing comments about me when I scrolled further down in the email.]

Thus, I make active use of the BCC option. It prevents the accidental reply-all by others.

It also has enabled me to diplomatically handle group invitations when there's someone I don't really want to involve. See, girls can be prone to friend-envy. When I send an email forward to the "ten of your favorite girlfriends who need a good laugh today", I always use BCC.

Because I have actually received replies from my less mature girlfriends with comments like, "Yeah, I saw you also sent that to Missy. I didn't know you were still friends with that bitch."

(Fortunately for Missy, that was not a reply-all mishap.)

I also have lots of friends in a variety of circles. Family. Friends. College friends. High school friends. Drinking buddies. Former co-worker friends. Current co-worker friends. Co-workers, non-friends. Strictly-business friends. "Friends". Never the twain should any of them meet! Too many worlds colliding -- it'd would NOT be a smooth mix if the potty-mouth Current Co-worker friends have something to say that might be TMI for the Drunking Buddies. Family and Co-workers non-friends, also not a very good mix. (See story above) I have also used reply-all to "pretend" I have issued invitations to "everyone"... it's never as obvious to see who I omitted when you can't see anyone.

Reply-all has also been a clever device when you are trying to seem all chill, low-key, and casual to a one person that you are emailing. You send out that casual invite for drinks to a group of friends.... but in the BCC you only type one name. That person doesn't have to know they're your intended target!!!!! Or, sending out a serious email to your colleagues about a particular complaint? Except in the BCC you only have type that one offending loser's name!!! They'll never know!

Aaah.... the many merits of the BCC. I love you, BCC. If I could marry you and all your stealth ways, I would. Mrs. Toni Ryan BCC.



Which brings me to today.


From: Toni Ryan
Sent: Tue, February 10, 2009 2:26 PM
To:



Subject: happy hour? tomorrow? 5:30p?

That's where I'll be! ... As will a combination of random others. Intrigued? Then, come by! I'll buy your first drink!

p.s. I didn't send this invite to the whole planet because I am either a) selective, b) lazy, c) both. Please keep that in mind before forwarding.


And then I got this reply:


From: Frank Coworker
Sent: Tue 2/10/2009 2:33 PM
To: Toni Ryan

Subject: RE: happy hour? tomorrow? 5:30p?

Well, if you weren’t gaaaaaaay and BBC-ing people, I wouldn’t have to worry about forwarding, because I’d know exactly who it went to already….



LOL! Hahaha that's a really good point.



As usual, I was only thinking of avoiding the usual comment I get back about, "You didn't invite me to happy hour." Hey, I don't own happy hour. It's an institution. I just said that I was gonna be at happy hour with other people, and if you happen to show up, great. I don't want to be responsible for whether or not a person feels "invited" or not. Too much pressure.


Thus the BCC.


For curiosity's sake, I posted this question on Facebook: "Which is worse, BCC or Reply-All?" and have already elicited a number of fiery, thoughtful responses.


All just opinions. But I'm still going to BCC to my heart's content.




Although....



Maybe... just maybe. Maybe all of this was just an elaborate ruse that I concocted?



From: Toni Ryan
Sent: Tue, February 10, 2009 2:26 PM
To:


BCC: Frank Coworker

Subject: happy hour? tomorrow? 5:30p?



I guess he'll never know....

"Possible juror booted for Facebook post"

Recent Headline:
Possible juror booted for Facebook post

Well that's a hoot.

So... let me get this straight. Honestly stating how you feel within a public forum is being discouraged by the judicial system? That's some pretzel logic right there.

If having a blog, Facebook profile, using Twitter, or (godforbid) talking on the air is threatening a person's right to serve on a jury, then maybe the system should suss those folks out and omit them from the process before even getting started.

And since having a blog, Facebook profile, using Twitter, or (godforbid) talking on the air are not punishable crimes, the system better not think for a second of pointing those things out like they're personal character flaws.

Nobody wants an little angry Filipino in their courtroom.



Yes. I didn't get out of Jury Duty.

But I think I am now totally looking forward to it.




(and yes, the commentary was originally posted on my Facebook wall. How's that for pretzel logic??)

25 Things That Are Out of Control. Go ahead, guess my #1.

Two weeks ago, I thought, "Eh. I've already been tagged twice. I should probably do this thing."

So, I sat there on Facebook for nearly an hour, trying to think up clever little bits of nonsense about myself that would impress, wow, surprise, and/or humor twenty-five of my nearest & dearest.

And to let them know they were the two-dozen-plus-one special people who were privy to this cache of useless knowledge, I tagged all of them. All twenty-five. In a note entitled, "25 Random Things About Me".

Then it began.

First, the comments. The reactions. The follow-ups. The agreements.


And then I realized what I had done. Inadvertently created a stream of reply-all hell. Everytime someone thought it would be nice to tell me they also thought cilantro tasted like soap, it reverberated across twenty five notification windows across the country (and Germany too).

There's a girl in my office who also hates cilantro as much as I do. I know that now. And now, so does a person in LA who doesn't know her (my college roommate). As does another complete stranger who lives in Europe (she used to ride the bus with me).

To offset the further ripple effect of well-meant comments, I went back and untagged everyone then went on my merry notification-free way.



Fast forward a few weeks. I've been tagged a few more times, but I'm not stressed. I took care of my due diligence early on, already churned out my personal list of minutiae.

But I am noticing my newsfeed filling up with breaking news of rampant tagging going on... everywhere. The guy who was my lab partner in bio has twenty-five things he wants to share. A girl I used to take ballet class with, she has twenty-five of her own. My cousin's sister-in-law would like to reveal that she was once in a music video, in addition to twenty four other things.

To make matters worse, for a Facebook novice this all amounts to some obvious confusion. "Hey, someone tagged me that I was mentioned in this note they wrote.... and I read it like ten times. I must be so stupid, because I can't figure out where they mentioned me!"

That's because they didn't.

Shame on you, Facebook.




And it goes on.

Now, it's made the news....

From USA Today: Facebook friends share '25 Things' with the world

New York Times... Ah, Yes, More About Me? Here Are ‘25 Random Things’

MSNBC... 25 Random Things About Facebook

Time...25 Things I Didn't Want To Know About You



So, on my NEW list are the following items (not in any particular order):

• Putting dollar bills in my hand, then topping it with the loose change.



• This whole digital converter box controversy



• Spam (as in email. I have no issue with the canned food product)



• The size of the parking spots in Princeton boro. I saw a Smart Car parked in one, and there was enough room leftover for two more Smart Cars. There is enough room in all of Princeton boro for all the cars that need to park there, and then some. Maybe they painted all those lines at a time back when every person in the boro needed to parallel park their stretch limos. Yes, that must be it.



• L'il Green Patch



• The five thousand pieces of paper that you get when you pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.



• Texting me questions that require four paragraphs of verbage that I could've covered in a two minute phone call.



• Mouthy, world-weary teenagers who have been raised to say exactly what's on their minds.



• The Nassau Park shopping center parking lot.



• The TV seasons that are intermittent, sporadic, and randomly start at all times of the year.



• People who clearly can't sing, wowing us with their lack of skill in a homemade YouTube video.



• The storyline on Lost.



• Believing that a meaningful relationship can be borne from, and sustained by, cryptic, ambiguous text messaging.



• People driving SUVs who need to have their licenses suspended.



• The shrinking size of edible product inside those boxes (the ones that you buy from those nice little girls in the uniforms), in relationship to the cost per box. (I am an alumni, so I am trying not to be mean)



• Not following through. Be honest with yourself. If you're not gonna do something, shut your trap and don't say you will.



• People on meds for behavioral and mental concerns, and showing ZERO PROGRESS.



• Passing on the right.



• Mail-order catalogs with random junk (First name Harriet, last name Random Crap...)



• Children and lack of manners. What is up with that?



• Double-parking your car.



• Cheap bastards who skimp on tipping.



• Not communicating. I'm not Kreskin, I can't freaking read your mind.



• 24. The show. Only so many nuclear air strikes can be thwarted in a day's time by one man. With all due respect, thousands of people will be braindead if we don't bring an end to this show, Mr. President.

That's 24 items right there. And without further ado, here's my last and final addition to my list. And it's technically #1.

#1 is The 25 Random Things pandemonium that has been spawned from the loins of Facebook.

And if you can't figure out what the title of the above list is, then you sure as hell better not be tagging me anytime in the near future!

I'm getting a shirt that reads: "I don't like men, I believe in eye-for-an-eye justice, I support jury nullification, & my child has chickenpox."

"OFFICIAL BUSINESS - JURY SUMMONS"

... Gah. GAH. Yup. Came in the mail. I've also gotten the reminder notice that I haven't RSVP'd to the first invitation to the legal bash, mainly because I've spent the last few weeks scouring the web and googling the words "jury", "duty", "excuses", "psychiatrist", and "note".

HELP!

Anybody think this'll work: if I ask whether or not my other personalities will also have an equal opportunity to share their opinions, too?

... Seriously, I am a law-abiding-citizen not really because of my predilection for being the quintessential "good girl" but mainly because I have some unfounded fear of the legal system. (Go ahead, take a moment to laugh. You done? Please, by all means. Get it out of your system now.)

The notion of sitting on a jury panel and making a decision STRESSES me out! I mean, what if I make a mistake? What if I tune out and stop paying attention, or worse... FALL ASLEEP! How am I qualified to make a good decision on behalf of another human being if I can't be trusted to stay awake for godssakes?!?!

I mean, even my own family members won't allow me to babysit their children... if they can't trust me, then who am I to decide that some guy owes his ex-wife money for sleeping with the nanny?? Or that even though this kid's fingerprints were all over the steering wheel of the stolen car that maybe he didn't really "steal" the car, per se.

And am I the only person that worries about this? Am I the only person that is so aware of my potential incompetence, that I shouldn't have to come up with an excuse... that the court system should be clearly see that having me on their jury would be a travesty to the idea of "justice for all".

"Uh, yeah we'd like to dismiss Juror 4... I don't think she'll be right for this case if she keeps randomly falling asleep like that."

"I concur! Not even the chronic narcolepsy, but your honor, I think she's been doing Sudoku back there!"

"Granted. AHEM. MISS! Someone wake up Juror 4. Miss, you're dismissed. But in the future, please avoid making such commentary about your physical attraction to other members of this courtroom. But I do appreciate the compliment, nonetheless."


Or maybe it's not just me. Maybe we are all underqualified to be on jury duty, but most of us don't really mind hanging out there all day just having opinions on stuff. Which sucks. Most of my opinions are stupid. I judge people on their appearance. I'm very negative towards the sight of unflattering colors and bad haircuts. I hate reading. Serious topics like government and healthcare are boring. I'm not the girl you bring home if you want to impress your parents. I'm the girl you bring to the bar to provide shock value with my potty mouth and my very un-PC point of view.

Ugh. This is why I don't why I want to do jury duty. It's not the doing jury duty that bothers me. It's the thinking about having to do jury duty. I don't want to screw up, but I think I will manage to screw it up somehow. And ennumerating the ways I may/will screw it up is causing undue stress and making me really dislike myself.

Like, do I have to pay attention? I mean seriously, I get bored EASILY. What about bringing a magazine to read in court? Can I do that? What happens if I fall asleep? Will I get yelled at?

And how about snacking? If I keep a bag of Sun Chips in my purse, is that ok? Or is it ok as long as I share with everyone in the jury box, and in the courtoom at large (including the defendant. Willing to share until proven guilty. I don't share with the guilty.)

Can I pee when I want? This has never actually happened to me but what if I spontaneously feel like puking or something? Can I just run out of the room?

Goodness, I have SO many questions. And I'm sure any of you who have served jury duty know that my anxieties are completely ludicrous, but to expect me to just get over it is proof that you don't know me very well. I worry about everything. Like let's say I actually bother doing this whole jury thing. What if I end up in a situation where I decide something that makes people very upset? Will I have to move? Or change my name? I watch Lifetime, I know what happens to single women on jury duty when defendants get pissed. (Well, I don't look anything like Judith Light or Mare Winningham, so I should be fine.)

So, again. Help. And now I ask meekly, because I know there isn't a thing anyone can say that will really get me out of jury duty. Although, you could tell me stuff that might make me feel better.

Or you could tell me if you're also doing jury duty at the same time as me, so we can swap life stories and details about our personal lives. We might have fun! Who knows, we might even become really good buddies with the other ten, maybe we could do like jury reunion parties, right?


And if you haven't been summoned by the long index finger of the law, don't feel bad.

When I get done with jury duty, I'll tell you ALL about it.



Every detail. Every single. Last. Juicy. Detail.




'Coz that's who I am. A blabber mouth.

(Oh, should I mention that to them?)