I think I was made for the Grand Jury business. I'm fair, level-headed, and thoughtful...if I say so myself. (Hey, nobody said anything about being modest.) I'm defending justice, cleaning up the streets of New York, protecting my fellow citizens. And the best part is, I don't even have to get out of my seat. I can sip Starbucks coffee for three hours while a rotating cast of NYPD and the occasional eye-witness come through and tell me (ok, us) their tales. Then, with a wave of my hand I can motion to indict the bastards everyone's talking about or toss out the charges and let someone be a free man.
I. Am. God.
(Recognize me?)
While I am sworn to secrecy about the nature of the very important work I'm doing, I'll share a brief overview. Today, we voted that a twice-arrested drug dealer stand trial. This case hit close to home because his "office" was just a few blocks from where I work. It really made me appreciate how these undercover cops put their lives on the line every hour of the day, every day of the year in order to protect ME and create a safer environment. Trust me, when you see these men and women, it feels very personal. It takes a special human-being to make an undercover drug bust at 3AM on Christmas Eve. These guys absolutely deserve our respect. And good thing I was around today to really cement all the fantastic work they're doing with the raising and lowering of my hand. It takes all kinds.
We also had our first debate today. While 12 Angry Men it was not, it was interesting to hear what other people had been thinking while one particular presentation was going on. There were definitely 23 people in the room with 23 distinct thoughts and the exchange of moral and ethical ideas with total strangers was, from a psychological perspective, fascinating. This is an amazingly unique learning experience that I'm sure I will never again encounter in my lifetime.
The other thing that's fascinating is how I know practically nothing about the metric system. They taught this to me year after year in school, yet I maintained that I would never need to know it because I didn't plan on moving outside of the USA. But just like geography and multiplication, the metric system has become one of those pesky things that, it turns out, IS applicable outside of the classroom. However, it appears that the "practically nothing" I do know is waaay more than anyone else knows. The man behind me thought that 500mg is more than a pound. Um, 500mg is about the size of an extra strength Tylenol. Now yes, there are various substances on the Periodic Table with such high densities that this size/weight ratio could be possible. Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet almost anything that cocaine isn't one of them.
That's right, there are crack dealers out there weighing and measuring and converting said measurements and designing business plans that are more complicated than I, with two MA degrees, the be-suited and oh-so-important business man behind me, and the biologist next to me can follow. Nobody could decide if 13 grams of marijuana fits in a sandwich bag or suitcase. Did it look like a pine cone or pine tree? Was this a lot or an average amount? Tell us in "dime bags" and "ounces" for chrissake-- use terms we can understand! That's like saying to me the undercover cop paid for them in Shekels or used British Sterling. It means nothing. I was almost tempted to text LE and ask him to be an expert witness on the case.
And speaking of men, I still don't have any. The closest thing I've gotten to a date this week was being snubbed by a semi-attractive man on the grand jury in the room next door. I only saw him the first day, but I'll be damned if I'm not dressed up every day for the rest of the month in hopes of seducing him over a cup of vending machine coffee during the three minutes we have to relax before our trials begin.
Afterall, it only takes women 30 seconds to decide if they're going to sleep with someone, and it's probably even less for men. What we do with the other 2:30 is up to us.
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