Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to PC.
Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, it's me. I'm back from my business trip. It sucked. Thanks for asking. If you didn't ask I'll tell you anyway.

[If you are new to my blog, go back and read "My Day In Court". It will tell you about what my "business" is so you understand why I've been doing what I've been doing.]

I was summoned to sunny Georgia for court. The District Attorney's office made arraingenments to fly me down on Tuesday so I could be in court first thing Wednsday morning. They picked me up at the hotel at 8:30 in the morning and we went straight to the courthouse. And there I sat... and sat. Finally at around 10:30 that morning, they came and told us that they are still picking a jury, so they would take us all back to the hotel and pick us up at 12:30 after lunch. Being the experienced witness that I am, I had a book with me. So it was no great loss to me, I just took my book back to the hotel and kept on reading.

After lunch we all rode back to the courthouse. And there I sat... and sat... and sat.... You get the picture. It turned out that after they finally picked the jury, they had seven pre-trial motions that needed to be decided. So we sat... and, never mind.

At just after 3:00 p.m. the Assistant District Attorney came to talk to me and the first three words out of his mouth were "I'm really sorry..." I knew I was screwed.

The judge had released everyone early for the day and decided that opening arguments would start at 9:00 on Thursday morning. So I had sat in a hard-ass chair in a suit on and off all day for nothing. And the worst part is, I knew I was going to get screwed when I came in that morning and they hadn't even started picking a jury yet. But I had to sit there.

Since I was eighth in line to testify, I also had to sit all day Thursday. And there wasn't a break to go to the hotel for a while. This was sit in the courthouse and wait.

All day.

Until 3:00 p.m. when I finally got on the stand.

Do you want to know how long I was on the stand for. About ten minutes. The defense attorney didn't ask me a single question.

My flight schedule got me home at 10:45 last night, actually about thirty minutes ahead of schedule.

11 hours on various planes and in various airports
11 hours total wait time on hard-ass courthouse chairs
11 minutes of testimony

Anyone want to trade jobs??