Chick Wit: Jury duty: Back to high school

When I received the summons for jury duty, I didn't know what to expect. Turns out, jury duty is a lot like high school.

While our instructor was taking attendance, I felt like I was back in homeroom. Everyone was sleepy, grumpy, and seated in a collective slump. There were posters on the wall picturing a perfectly diverse group of smiling people, only instead of "Knowledge Is Power," it had fine print about doing your civic duty.

I don't know how much motivation you need to do something that's compulsory.

The instructor told us to correct him if he was mispronouncing any names and then proceeded to mispronounce all of them. There was that one person who waited three beats before saying "Here," and the person who made a point to say, "Present," instead. Each time he came upon a no-show, I had to fight the urge to say "Bueller, Bueller?"

When a short lunch break was announced, there was a stampede out of the courthouse. Eating on campus was clearly uncool.

After a quick hunt for cheap fare, I ducked into a sandwich shop. The place had only a few cafe tables, all taken. A man sitting alone said I was welcome to join him, and after hesitating, I did a very un-New Yorker thing - I accepted.

"Thanks, I'm on break from jury duty."

"Me too," he said. And suddenly we were pals, griping about the lawyers, comparing cases, talking about our dogs.

I hadn't been this happy to have someone to sit with at lunch since sixth grade.

Before we knew it, recess was over. Back at the courthouse, we were divided into smaller jury pools and sent to be questioned by the lawyers for each side in a process known as voir dire. French class all over again.

The defense lawyer was an older Asian man with the voice and demeanor of Joe Pesci. If you had any issues with authority, he was the type of guy you'd want to punch. On the other hand, the plaintiff's attorney was a young woman, earnest but apologetic. She was the student teacher about to get torn to shreds.

Every time the lawyers stepped outside to argue, which was often, we erupted in chatter, gossip, and imitations of them, making the most of our unsupervised minutes. But as soon as the door opened, we'd snap back into the little angels that we weren't.

And although our group was as varied as Manhattan itself, with every age, race, and profession imaginable, when it came to types, the room could have been cast by John Hughes.

We had the long-haired guy who sat in the back, brooding and mysterious. When I was sixteen, I dated that guy. This time, he didn't even make me a mix CD.

There was the popular girl, with long, shiny blonde hair, who already seemed to have made friends. She was like Marcia Brady with a better sense of humor and an advanced degree. I wanted to braid her hair.

The hot-girl foreign-exchange student. When a young, very pretty Hispanic woman asked the lawyer to define "hoarder," every Spanish-speaking male jumped to help her.

Our class clown was sitting next to me in the back. He was smart, funny, and a little mischievous.

He just happened to be 78 years old.

Once, when one of the lawyers asked a particularly vague, roundabout question, he called out, "Do you believe in manifest destiny?"

Everyone laughed, but the attorney didn't appreciate his class participation.

The one difference from high school was the sense of camaraderie. A jury, by its very nature, makes peers of people who may seem completely different. Initially, I thought it was because we were all stuck in this chore together. But despite our shenanigans when the teacher's back was turned, during the questioning, people took it seriously, answered honestly, and rose to the occasion. Because we'd want someone to do the same for us.

Ultimately, I was not chosen for the trial. But at the end of the day, I rode the subway home with my new friend, a 78-year-old smart aleck, and I felt lucky we were stuck in this city, and this nation, together.