A place I don’t like…
Jury Duty. I took these awesome pictures at jury duty last week and I wanted to share them with you.
Now, if you can’t tell what these are at first let me explain it. The first one is of the seats that they have in the main jury assembly room. This room can fit about 200 people in it and smells like urine. Now, I don’t know what happened in these chairs to make them off limits. Perhaps this is the scene of a homicide, which I wouldn’t be surprised by because jury duty is just that fun it makes you want to kill people, thus perpetuating the need for juries – how conveeeenient. The second picture is of the clock on the wall with a post-it that says “wrong time”. Really? This is just baffling. So many questions. I mean, how many thought process steps do you need to go through to put this post-it on the clock and still think this is an appropriate way to handle this kind of technical malfunction. But I would have to agree – I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In addition to the lovely gems above I was also forced to watch a video on “Why we have jury duty”. Maybe you’ve seen it? It has regular people saying that being on a jury was one of the best experiences of their life and how much they loved it. I bet. There was one guy in particular who said – and i quote, “If I was in that position I would definitely want a jury of my peers to decide what should happen.” I was kind of floored when I heard that. Mainly because I REALLY do not want my fate decided by members of the general public. I only trust robots. They should replace all juries with computers, thats my position.
Emilily, and 
Carmen are discussing. 
Ma, and 
My second favorite part of New Orleans (the architecture was first, the food third) was the cemetery. According to the map, there are two main cemeteries, Lafayette One and Lafayette Two, but we only made it to the first. Cemeteries, by their nature, have an aura about them that makes me feel they should only be visited under the cover of darkness, preferably on a moonless night, with a thick layer of mist rolling over the horizon and the sound of wolves howling in the distance. So it felt odd to be walking through the tall, wrought iron gates in the blazing hot afternoon sun. Add to the oddness – then there was this guy, gravedigger Shawn. He was rounding up the few visitors for what he referred to as the last tour of the day. My first thought was, “oh, awesome, I didn’t know there was a cemetery tour, the pamphlet didn’t say anything about this…” and my second thought was “hey, the pamphlet didn’t say anything about this…” 
And although I try not discriminate against people who are missing most of their teeth, just because you have really dirty hands and are walking around a cemetery with a broom does not make you the gravedigger; it does not even prove you are the gardener, the tour guide, or the officially sanctioned welcome wagon. In his defense, he also had a pad of post-it notes with the Lafayette Cemetery logo stamped on them, a fanny pack that appeared to be stuffed full of leaves, and a laminate badge of indistinct design whose only claim to validity was the fact that it was laminated. None of that stopped Shawn from launching into what proved to be a lengthy, rambling, poorly-enunciated speech on why the bodies were stored above ground, how the headstones were unsealed, and what he would do if he accidentally got trapped inside a casket with a pretty lady. At this point, Mia and I had concluded that this guy was probably not a gravedigger, but just a resourceful individual with access to a Kinko’s, knowledge of the area, a flair for oration, and most likely a substance abuse problem. 
mia, and 
Emilily 9:25 am on September 17, 2009 Permalink
Huh, I am surprised the person who put that note up on the clock didn’t think to just write the correct time on the post-it, obviously, that would have solved the whole problem.
Carmen 9:31 am on September 17, 2009 Permalink
And then change the post-it every minute, that would be funny in a mel brooks kind of way.
Emilily 9:32 am on September 17, 2009 Permalink
Oh, and the chairs! I like how the caution tape covers the chair in the back, and only half of the chair in front, like it is still safe if you maybe sit on the very edge. I am sure whatever bio-hazard they’re protecting you from there knows to stay behind the yellow line. Although this does give me a great idea – wouldn’t it be fun to have your very own roll of caution tape? You could block off certain areas, or things, in public places, then hide somewhere with a camera and record the results. Like you could have two tables set up in a park – one with cookies and one with milk, and you could caution-tape off just the area around the milk, and then see who risks life and limb to reach over the tape for a glass of milk. (I suppose it would also be interesting to see who eats cookies off a table at the park.) It could be performance art, or a social experiment, or both! Now that I think about it, it almost seems like too good of an idea – either it’s been done before, or it’s illegal.
Emilily 9:33 am on September 17, 2009 Permalink
Oh yeah, or just have a bunch of post-its with the time written on them and then scratched out and a new time written under it.
What really baffles me is the person who put up that note probably did not see the comedic situation they were creating. Did they get the absurdity of it, or were they really just trying to be helpful? Either way, thank god for people like that, doing their part to unwittingly make the world a more entertaining place.
Carmen 9:38 am on September 17, 2009 Permalink
Lucky for you they sell caution tape at Home Depot! You better get on it!
Emilily 9:49 am on September 17, 2009 Permalink
Wow, really? I just goggled “fun with caution tape” and all I came up with was how to make a caution tape headband, so this could be an untapped opportunity…