Yesterday, I had to report for jury duty. I was waiting on line inside the foyer of the courthouse with more than 50 other Queens residents, and I suddenly noticed that almost everyone looked miserable!
At first, I wasn’t completely convinced about the accuracy of my observation, but once I made it through the security screening, I was certain. Our group was instructed to sit in a big room which, sure enough, contained hundreds of other miserable-looking people! I began to wonder why everyone had such long faces. I had just returned from a Buddhist country and Buddha’s philosophy is that life is suffering. Were all these people immersed in their suffering? Or, were they all simply upset about missing work and having to do jury duty? Or, was I just exaggerating things by projecting my own unhappiness at having to show up at the courthouse while still battling a stomach flu?
Well, whatever the reason, the jury hall was pretty somber. After about an hour, the police officer in charge announced that he was going to begin calling names for jury selection. I thought it was nice that he apologized in advance for his anticipated mispronunciation of names, but considering that these were criminal cases, his choice of words seemed peculiar. He bellowed into the microphone "Please forgive me folks, but it’s early in the morning and I’m definitely going to murder your names".
Anyway, because Queens, New York, is one of the true melting pots of the world, most of the names were foreign-sounding and the officer truly did "murder" them. We were instructed to shout "here" once our names were called and then walk up, taking all of our belongings, to the front of the room. Antonio Bontempi, Michung Kim, Sanjaya Parulekar, – the names went on and on and people vacated their seats. Everyone was listening attentively for their own name to be called, or something that remotely sounded like it. Finally, the officer got to a name that he was confident about pronouncing and he belted it out with gusto. He screamed, "Michael Jackson!"
It took a split second for the name to sink in, and then giggling and laughter broke out all around. It was delightful. We all got the joke at the same time. There was no way that it could be THE Michael Jackson but, in our mind’s eye, we imagined the famous performer standing up, raising his white glove-covered hand, singing "here", and moonwalking to the front of the room!
Unfortunately, the guy who did eventually stand up was just an average unassuming businessman, but even once the spell had been broken, the ray of sunshine that had entered the room continued to brighten our day.
