Boredom

"Boredom: The state of being weary and restless through lack of interest". In French, the word is "ennui' which is derived from Old French enui - annoyance. 

A short while ago, I mentioned that I’m on Grand Jury Duty and did a post explaining what that means. When I wrote that post, I had just learned what a Grand Jury is and does, and I won’t repeat those basics here. What I had no appreciation for at the time was how much “down time” there is when you’re serving on a Grand Jury. The Grand Jury is an arm of the court and needs to be available to the District Attorney’s office to further the process of juris prudence. When the Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) are ready, so must the Grand Jury be, BUT until they’re ready, the Grand Jury must wait. 

There have been days in the last three weeks that we were in court no more than 31 minutes! The rest of the day we 23 jurors are sequestered in a long, narrow room in the center of which are two tables end-to-end. Together they are probably 2.5 feet by 14 feet in dimension and accommodate 14 of us at any point in time. Six more chairs line an inside wall and straddle a water cooler, and there are ten chairs lining the outside wall with windows. Thankfully, there’s plenty of light because without it, this would feel much like a dungeon of sorts. There's a micro wave oven but no fridge, and a bookcase full of magazines and games.

The 23 of us range between the ages of 19 and 69 (or so) and have varied backgrounds. The one thing we all seem to have brought to this service is a sense of humor – thank goodness! As we sit here waiting to be called in to hear the next case, we muster all our resources to fight the boredom. 

Boredom, in the adult form of our species, is quite interesting to watch day after day. It appears to be mildly uncomfortable at best, spawning some entertaining behavior, and painful at its worse, truly testing patience and common courtesy. Some fight off the boredom by reading, others listen to music on their iPods or play games on their PCs. Some play solitaire or poker, another teaches cribbage, several assemble jigsaw puzzles, and others sleep. 
In the past three weeks, I've even seen boredom reduce grown men to lads once more coloring car characters with crayola crayons. Small circles chat about everything from tugboats to T.J.Maxx, and jokes pepper the conversations more and more each day. 

But, as the days and weeks pass, it takes more and more effort to be patient with the process and each other. By now we know the Grand Jury process and are more than familiar with most of the law that we need to consider for the crimes being brought before us, but read it they must "for the record". And, every day we get to know one another a little more. What we found entertaining in someone one day may become mildly annoying another day. St. Augustine wrote in the 5th century, "It is a common proverb that too much familiarity breeds contempt”. Let me not mislead you, it certainly has not come to that but frustrations ebb and flow depending on the day, the hour, and the case load.

Our group is a good group, a favorite of the ADAs and court staff - our collective good nature, and sense of fun and humor, gets us all through. Despite our exhausted patience, our naturally good intentions show their faces nearly daily ..... when one of us sneezes, in unison 22 others say "God bless you"!

Comments

[Claudia]

I'd nearly forgotten. Thanks for reminding me .... This too shall pass away!

[Sally]

I must agree with Barbara. You are an excellent writer. What I loved is that you had a sense of humor in the midst of something not so desirable. As I know you quite well dear sister, keep that sense of humor for the next week through the frustrations of each day. As our father use to say "This too shall pass"

[Barbara Andolsek Paintings]

i think you must hear it. you are an excellent writer my dear friend. truly. you took what would be to me too tedious a subject to even consider reading and made it interesting enough for me to continue to read. who knew? about jury duty that is... i hope and pray with all of my right brained being - not i please. ever! i sincerely hope it is over for all of you very soon.