Getting Out Of Jury Duty

“You will be tried by a jury of your peers.”

The judges say this before arranging felony proceedings while the District Attorney prepares to paint you with words like a Steadman caricature. While your public defender gets wasted on Keystone Light in his shitty apartment, some court clerk mails the party invitations: brief and vaguely comprehensible notices that you, the lucky bearer, have been chosen to help decide the fate of some poor fucker who zigged when he should have zagged. Enter my predicament:

Jury duty.

It seems that I, a humble writer, lover of fine literature and coarse photography, am qualified to sit in someone else's puddle of cold sweat on a vinyl chair, in some courtroom while watching a raw episode of Judge Judy unfold. Yeah. I can smell the pseudo-Latin banter already - it's punctuated by the rotten stench from some meth mouth on the stand. Or the bile from the prosecution. Or the defense. Or both.

Somewhere in that Congolese tunnel of bullshit are diamonds of pure truth, and they want me - imagine that, me! - to find them...and then find in favor of one party. I'll be a voice - one of twelve - deciding whodunit, and it's probably not Colonel Mustard in the Study with the Pipe this time. I always lost at Clue, and they want me in court?

So I've been brainstorming, lightning shooting from my eyes, thunder rolling from the keyboard, to come up with my plan. Anyone who wants to reclaim your Tuesday-Friday, or at least to avoid spending it in some courtroom fighting to stay awake, here is my plan...a letter. That's it. I'm a writer, it won't be hard, and I've loved MadLibs my whole life. So here's the formula...solve for your own variables:

Good day Sir/Madam,

I am pleased by your invitation to jury duty on (date), and relish the opportunity to put another (expletive) (racial slur) in the clink. It's time we cleaned up our streets and put the (expletive) trash where it belongs: on a barge out to sea. You know what they call a bus full of (racial slur) on the bottom of the ocean? Do ya? A damn good start, that's what, 'cause you can't trust those little (adjective) bastards. I've got another one for you: how do you starve a (racial slur)? I don't know either, but we ought to look into it immediately!

But seriously, it's time to (verb) the (adjective) (profanity) (racial slur) who've ruined (noun) - that's why this one's in court, I betcha. As a (man/woman) of profound faith, I firmly believe it our duty to rid The Devil and his taint from society. I've read the back flap of a lot of books on the matter, and they all agree it's our duty to champion justice no matter how many (plural profane pronoun) we have to kill. This could be the start of something big, sir/madam, and I want my part.

Now I lost my license last week coming home from the tittie bar, so I can't drive, and that's what I'm writing you about. See, my (boyfriend's/girlfriend's) van blew up last month when the lab in the back 'caught fire, so there's no way I can get to court. Could you send a car to (name of bar) about eleven that morning to pick me up? I need to "pregame" a while.

Thanks, and lemme know if I should bring anything besides my cooler.

Sincerely,
_____________________,(your name)

Just fill in the right epithets and slurs for your geographic area, your own race, etc—you don't have to actually hate crackers / spics / niggers / chinks / wops / dagos / kikes or anyone else...the idea is just to make it sound like you do. But if you do hate them, it would certainly help. If it sounds like you have preexisting prejudices, or are otherwise demonstrably unfit for jury duty, you don't have to go. Who knows, it might just work—or, some poor fucker's fate could be in the hands of George, my lucky quarter.

Heads he's guilty, tails he's not innocent,