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Originally uploaded by grabbingsand.

After taking in a late afternoon matinée of The Last King of Scotland with Janice and Wendy, Nikki and I stopped by the our nearby Publix for a couple of necessities. Having not heard any news since this morning, it was quite obvious that the local weather wizards have been making proclamations of doom. Of course, bread shelves had been hit. Milk was limited. Since we tend to buy the organic varieties, we had no trouble getting our own. Storm-readiness must only include the big names like Mayfield. And oddly enough, almost all of the chicken broth was gone. Now really, is a combination of bread, milk and chicken broth going to be the very staples needed to survive a blizzard?

The little signs up and down the aisle, they weren’t helping. As if the advice of meteorologists wasn’t enough to panic the populace into fits of hoarding, leave it to the store itself to hammer the point right on home. I found this one sign in the pasta section. I guess enough carbs will keep anybody warm.

Snow or not, I’m heading downtown in the morning. Even though my little ticket had a tick in the “Standby” checkbox, my hopes of getting off scott-free were dashed by a phone call to the clerk’s office. Usually, they start off the greeting with a list of what groups can stay home (or actually, go to work). This time, the recording was simple: “All jurors are expected.”

Yep. Jury duty.

Thankfully, Atlanta’s own version of the “Trial Of The Century” already has a healthy pool of 950 prospective jurors.* So with that possibility seemingly out of the question, I’m just going to dress like I belong somewhere else, take a book or two to read and just see what happens. With any luck, I’ll be vetted, voir dire‘d and dismissed before the day is out.

I hope.

(* – Of which, I may actually be one. After thinking again about the 11Alive story, and about how I had to mail back a questionnaire attached to the original summons. Still … I might have an out. A very good and honest one. We’ll see.)