SOMETIMES PLACES JUST WON'T LET YOU GO

Yesterday was one of confusion. And then amazement at the sheer stupidity of government. I'm not even talking about places here in Maine. I know. You need to sit down and fan yourself. Get another cup of tea, dear. Or something stronger.

It all started Saturday when I picked up the mail. There it was. This postcard with the ominous title "Failure to Appear." Makes your skin crawl, doesn't it. Shoot! (or words a bit stronger). What did I do (or not do)? Things like that make you have to read the thing two or three times just to see what it is saying.

Seems I missed some kind of jury call. Was supposed to be in a jury pool on 10/4/10. OK. That would have been a Monday. I know because it was the Monday following that three-day writers' retreat - where the Friday drive was in that downpour. I posted about that - with the drivers who don't turn on their headlights. If you didn't read it, you can scroll down. It was a pip. Anyway, I know I was here for the 4th. I also know I never received any Jury Summons to be downtown on the 4th.

This Failure to Appear notification states I was to call the Jury Commissioner's office immediately or else I could be held in Contempt of Court and be fined. Shoot! (or that other word). So all day Sunday I am fit to be tied. Monday - yesterday morning, first thing, I start calling the number at 8:05AM (figure I should let whoever is at the phone in the Jury Commissioner's office have enough time to sit down with her cuppa and get her coat off. It was cold yesterday morning. The line was busy. I called again three minutes later. Line still busy.

I come up here to the office. There's a phone on the desk and I can call while I'm working. (I've been working on a novel and trying to get it polished and ready for the writers group and then to a published writer for a review/edit/critique before it's time for the tulips to come up or me to be planted - whichever comes first). I keep calling THAT NUMBER. It keeps ringing busy. Golly. Must have been a LOT of people who missed that date with the jury pool. I counted my calls. 47 and ewach time it was BUSY!

About 2PM, I call 411, just to be sure there's nothing wrong with the line - or the number. Number's fine, but the operator offers another number and for an extra charge, they will connect me directly. Heck, I'll take the extra juice. Do NOT want to be in Contempt of Court. Well, I get connected - to an automated answering system. It tells me I am now at the number for the Grand Jury. If I want the Jury Commissioner - or If I received a Failure to Appear, yep - I have to call that other number. Shoot (or that other word). Back to square #1. And it is still busy. Except that's when a dim light bulb goes on.

When the operator gave me the second number - the one I paid extra to be connected to - it had a 916 area code. That's Sacramento CALIFORNIA. Excuse me?! Only being a little slow on the draw, I look more closely at this postcard. Very faintly behind the print I can see a seal. Dang it if it's not the Great Seal of California!

Wait a minute. Now I turn the card around and Really look at the return address. True it does say Superior Court. Sacramento Superior Count! I never saw the Sacramento part in all the times I read the thing - never saw the Great Seal of California. Well, it is pretty faint. All that debt ($19 Billion - that's with a B) maybe they're cutting back a bit with the ink.

So I call that 916 area code, which is NOT part of the number printed on the post card, BTW... Got right through don't you know.

Seems the court system there pulls their names for jury duty from lists they obtain from the state Dept. of Motor Vehicle which still has me on their lists! (Does this constitue dual-citizenship by any chance?) And the original Summons went to the house I sold in Sacramento waaaay back at the beginning of 2007. Of course the Summons was never forwarded here. But when I "failed to show" on 10/4/07, the court then went the extra mile and somehow found my current address in MAINE and mailed the Failure to Appear anyway.

I asked the young lady in the Jury Commissioner's office if they were that hard up for jurors that they really needed someone from Maine to show up, not that I think a non-California resident would be allowed.... No, she didn't think I would be required to appear or that a judge would hold me in Contempt.

But you sent the notification anyway, I stated. Yes, she said. And it might happen again unless I notify California DMV that I've moved, she said. Did she have their address, I asked. I don't have any California telephone books any more, you see.

No, she said sitting in her Sacramento, California office. "But, you can probably find it on the Internet."

I am still shaking my head in wonderment over this. "They keep pulling me back." Wasn't that a line from The Godfather? I am beginning the business they were in.