Waiting for the Martini:
Jury Duty, Day Three

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Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:44:24

Today's Martini Recipe:
"Like Water for Cocktails"

  1. In cocktail shaker, toss in 1 shot dry vermouth (Martini & Rossi, Noilly Prat) over ice.
  2. Do one of the following for 20-30 seconds while holding the shaker at belly-button height: meringue, cha-cha, rumba, or -- if you're feeling ambitious -- samba.
  3. Pour out most of the vermouth (keep the ice, natch).
  4. Add 5-6 shots of Bombay Sapphire Gin to vermouthed ice in shaker; continue Latin dancing for another 40-50 seconds (taking care not to bring shaker into contact with bare skin on hips or midriff).
  5. Prepare a shish-kebab of one or two green olives stuffed with garlic (you can buy olives already stuffed, so no need to peel your own garlic). Regular toothpicks are OK for the skewers, but the colorful ones available at the liquor store add a festive air. Toss the olive skewers -- with brio and insouciance -- into two martini glasses. If brio or insouciance not at hand, you may substitute panache and je ne sais quoi.
  6. Introduce contents from step 4 to glasses from step 5. Ingest.

"Mr. M Performs His Civic Duty": Day the Third.

This is conjuring up some eerie memories from grade-school days, when I would be the last child standing in the group of unpicked players for the softball teams. Oh, I had a wicked swing; unfortunately, the bat never managed to connect with the ball. And the naturally athletic (and much taller) captains of the opposing teams had no interest in bolstering my self esteem, the way they would no doubt be required by law to do these days. (Can you picture Little Leaguers, with mom, dad, and attorneys from the Justice Department cheering them on?)

Three days of warming the bench, and nobody has picked me to play. Today there wasn't even a false start, like yesterday, or the entertainment of a voir dire, like Monday. I would head to the batting cage to see if a little practice helped, but most everyone else in the jury pool is working on a good buttocks crease, too.

Starting to think that the real civic benefit of this jury service thing is to act as a deterrent: "You think you're bored after sitting around in this room for three days, think how you'd feel if your surroundings shrunk to the size of a jail cell -- and your cell mate was large, hairy, and feeling a little frisky."

OK, I promise to be a model citizen and obey all laws. Except there are bound to be some I don't know about that I break every day. I'm doomed.

One last chance to help decide the fate of a fellow human tomorrow. If I strike out, then that's it (they don't start new trials on Fridays in Muni Court). Maybe it will be something really interesting, like someone mooning the entire Seattle City Council during one of their televised hearings. Or, perhaps better (although I dunno, if old Charlie C. is there): the entire City Council mooning someone else.

And speaking of mooning, just so y'all will have *something* entertaining and enlightening to read today, submitted for your approval from the clari.living.bizarre newsgroup:

RALEIGH, N.C., Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Mooning someone may be tasteless, but a North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled that it's legal under state law.

The court says that baring one's buttocks in public doesn't violate the state's indecent exposure law, because the law's definition of private parts only covers reproductive organs.

The decision stems from a case involving a man who dropped his shorts to his ankles as a Charlotte woman walked up a flight of stairs to her condominium.

Mark Edward Fly appealed his misdemeanor conviction for the 1995 incident.

The appeals court ruled 2 to 1 that there was no evidence Fly intended to show his private parts. State prosecutors could appeal the decision to the North Carolina Supreme Court.

North Carolina's law makes it illegal to "willfully expose the private parts of his or her person in any public place and in the presence of any other person, or persons of the opposite sex."

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Ralph Walker said "the buttocks are a part of the human body which morality and decency require to be covered in the presence of others."

Fly's public defender, Karen Eady, says the ruling suggests "we can go around mooning anyone in North Carolina that we want to."

[Guess he didn't expose his Fly.]

Nice to see that those fundamental liberties are being upheld, so to speak. But which amendment (unreasonable search? freedom of assembly?) does this fall under?

By the way, talked to one of the women who did sit on the jury in the case of the Hispanic dude who was accused of soliciting a prostitute. Said the city did such a miserable job of presenting its case that it took them only 10 minutes to return a verdict of "not guilty."

End of day three.


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