I don’t know either

The following was written on my lunch break during jury duty today.

Right now I am sitting on the twenty-second floor lobby of the Daley Center, overlooking the downtown Chicago area. The view, needless to say, is rather breathtaking — it is a sea of skyscrapers in which it is the very short buildings that stick out, not the very tall, because of the gaps and pits they create in the sprawling urban mass. The chief exception to this is the Sears Tower, which appears to be just a few blocks over, and on a sunny day like today, I can see it extending up into the sky, its two massive prong antenne very nearly skewering the sun. Last week it was cloudy, and the top thirty floors or so were obscured by a large gray puff of water vapor, but not today.

When I consider the height of the Sears Tower, suddenly it seems as though I’m really not all that far off the ground, and the cars on the street that a moment ago had looked like Micro Machines have suddenly grown to the size of Hot Wheels, and suddenly it seems as though I can see the facial expressions of each individual person scurrying around on the plaza below.

Before my imagination catches up with itself, suddenly I see a 747 fly overhead and barrel into the top of the surrounding buildings; then, I see it again, except this time the 747 crashes directly into the twenty-second floor lobby of the Daley Center. What could I possibly do in the event of such an unlikely occurrence? Could I dive into the stairwell? Run to the other side of the building? Dare I pass through the doors marked “Private” which surely lead to judges’ chambers? Would a 747 heed any notice that entrance to a particular hallway is restricted to authorized personnel only? Would a Swiss army knife be at all useful? The answer to these questions is “no”, except for the first question, to which the proper answer is “nothing”. Luckily, while it can be argued that malpractice suits and action claims are all-American, the civil court system in general and the Daley Center in particular seem to have escaped the notice of Osama bin Laden and his ilk.

I look more closely at the window. Oh, it was just an elaborate flat video screen all along. As it turns out, I’m twenty-two floors below ground level. An easy mistake to make.

And now I must return to the courtroom, in which I will do my part as a United States citizen to make sure that somebody who is complaining about someone and the person they’re complaining about get the fair and swift justice they deserve.

The correct answer cannot be determined from the given information

I am thinking about taking the GRE. For fun if nothing else. And if it helps me in any way to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a Research Fellow in Comparative Analytical Cartographical Geography at Ball State University, more’s the better!