They’re keeping this quiet. I’m blowing the lid off.

1. The jury selection process is a lot like “The Price Is Right”.

It’s true. In the morning, our potential jurors assemble in the waiting area and become the “studio audience”, if you will. Gradually, jurors assigned a particular panel number are asked to “come on down”, at which point they are led to a courtroom. As there are twenty-four to a panel, or something like that, once they are in the courtroom, twelve names are arbitrarily chosen once again to “come on down” and sit in the jury box. Then, the judge and attorneys ask you to “identify the price of an item up for bid”. If you “come closest to the correct price without going over”, you stay and be a juror. Otherwise you are sent home, your fifteen seconds of fame fading fast from the collective memory. Another interpretation is that those who “guess the price most accurately without going over” get to go “spin the wheel” in the judge’s chambers, where they are often dismissed, which is the “top prize”. The losers must remain in the jury box for weeks on end. Trust me, it will all make sense once you do it. As a result of this observation, I have had the “Price Is Right” theme song running through my head for the past several days. I can think of worse fates.

2. Court stenographers are routinely hot.

By and large, based on my personal experiences, this assessment is accurate. All of the stenographers so far (there have been two per day) have been women, and of these approximately ninety percent of them have been very attractive, and the one that wasn’t I largely ascribed to the unfortunate mullet-based hairstyle she wore. Nonetheless, there is a certain luminescence they present, almost mystical in nature. It’s not that they radiate light, but they reflect the light in a skillful and aesthetically pleasing way. I had the pleasure of sharing an elevator ride with one of them, and let me tell you, those fingers can do more than type two hundred fifty words a minute. They can also press elevator buttons.