#2

pulling into court today i noticed a gas smell which was emanating from a line trailing behind my car and ending in a puddle under the engine which, thankfully, wasn't on fire (yet...) so it is fair to say i was preoccupied. did i mention i had theater tickets?

i'd gotten the call a little over an hour ago, which is apparently fair by the rules of the court. last time i was in court, i asked the judge to explain what "on call" meant on my subpoena and she told me that i had a choice: either sit in the hallway while they go through jury selection and every witness before me every day until my turn came or agree to show up at court all scrubbed and ready to go an hour after getting a call from the DA. not a great deal but rather better than the alternative. hard to hold down a job under such circumstances, especially now that i've left the coroner's office, now that i'm starting over, but it beats the alternative.

the trick is the iPod. mine's full of audiobooks, which is a great way to pass the time in the hallway, avoiding the jurors (whom i'm not supposed to talk to at all and, believe me, it's very, very hard for me to just shut up for any amount of time). so iPod it is.

the other trick is the hijab. (hides the headphones pretty well). also throws people off. not that that's why i wear it. you know why i wear it; i don't have to tell you, right? i mean sometimes i feel like everybody is staring at me but i don't think that's true at all. i think they take one glance, think "muslim woman", add a whole bunch of assumptions (can i speak english? what war-ravaged country am i from anyway? have i heard of jesus?, and would i mind accepting him as my personal lord and savior?) and move on.

which brings me to enterprise rent a car.

so after two hours on the stand during which i swear that woman was going to make me explain each and every photograph taken of this poor dead woman ever taken (and, as a murder victim, there were slews of them) and i was--no kidding, folks-- on number 49 before we broke for the day with the worst news i could ever recieve-- be here tomorrow at 10AM-- i head back to the leaking wreck that was until today a perfectly reliable car (i think maybe it has cancer) to call triple a. i kept having to rewind the nine, my court-themed audiobook for the day, as my mind kept wandering along the general them of "today really sucks" but as we pulled into the enormous dealership that somehow wasn't closed for the day already and the nice man pointed me to the enterprise rent a car right there in the next building things started looking up.

the rent a car lady was up to her armpits in us and having none of our charm, humor, patience... she was a blur of clear clipboards and funky/chunky earrings and we were huddled masses yearning for cheap, scuffed up compacts. imagine how long it took for me to spill my rotten lousy wreck of a day to the pleasant-looking woman my age ahead of me in line. finally getting around to caring who she was and what her life was life, i got a whisper back that she was a cop. we do a little cop bonding (my dad was a criminalist! i used to work for the coroner! we're all on the same side...) and i get a couple of really good tips on plays.

but the cars were almost ready and my new best friend and i drove off into our respective lives.