Let The Record Show.

I received a rather hilarious call from my mother last week concerning her recent grand jury summons. She's been called for jury duty numerous times in the past but always gets nervous about the selection process. Answering questions under oath, having your personal life picked apart for biases, speaking in front of a large group of people in a court setting-- I imagine it can be stressful.

I've never been called for jury duty, but for someone who watches as many Law & Order reruns as I do, it really wouldn't be a good idea. I could totally see myself interrupting court proceedings with"Dun Dun!" sound effects, or randomly requesting sidebars or remand. 

"Your Honor, the people request remand." 

"You're not allowed to say that. You're a juror."

"Sidebar, Your Honor?"

"No."   

Right. Well after the long day of grand jury selection, my mom called to let me know about the funniest piece of grassroots PR my poor little unpublished book has seen. 

Here's what happened:

The entire jury box was sworn in under oath, and then one by one, they had to stand and answer questions about their lives. Name, occupation, spouse's name, occupation, the names and occupations of their children... etc. Deb mentioned that she really enjoyed hearing the life stories of all the other people around her, often thinking to herself, Oh, that sounds nice. 

When they finally reached my mom, she stood and addressed the judge as she answered all the questions. For the one concerning her children this is what she said, "I just said my oldest daughter lives in New York and works for New York City Opera, my youngest daughter also lives in New York and is a personal trainer, and then I said, and my middle daughter is a fledgling writer trying to get her first book published.  (Laughing) And then I paused for a second and addressed the court, saying, it's called Open-Eyed Sneeze. There were about 150 people in the room, Jess. So now they all know about your book."

I laughed about this for a good 5 minutes. My mom used her grand jury selection as a venue to plug my book. But it is kind of cool to think that the title exists somewhere in a stenographer's report for that day.

Thanks, mom.