jury duty, day two: vickie learns what it means to be a stripper!

with yesterday under my belt, and much of my anxiety about being on jury duty gone, i arrived at the court house this morning to find that the “baggage scanners” (i.e., those X-ray devices with conveyor belts onto which you place your purse/tote/knapsack/duffel bag/whatever) were all broken, so everyone entering the building had to have their bags thoroughly hand-searched by the officers on duty. needless to say, this was a slow process...but i did find a penny on the floor while i waited in line, so it was all good.

once back inside the Jury Lounge™, and after an amiable chat with the jury officer assigned to my panel, i scanned the room for a better place to sit. i wasn’t thrilled with my selection yesterday, so i wanted someplace new. sit with the cool kids? sit with the loners? sit with the euchre-players?

i opted for “sit in the small alcove with the lockers where it’s usually very quiet save for the flushing of toilets in the adjacent men’s washroom.” there was plenty of room, though i did have to sit on the (carpeted) floor, and no one infringing on my enjoyment of the space, so i parked myself against a wall and prepared for the day ahead.

today, i brought my powerbook along, because i was sure there must be a free wifi signal wafting through the building somehow. this way, i could pass some time checking my email, checking facebook and mindlessly surfing the internet.

yeah, turns out the only wifi signal available is one for which you have to pay through the nose, so i promptly shut down and opted to crack open my book fresh from the library.

that book was Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper by diablo cody, and it's an account of how the author went from ad-agency copywriter to peeler in minneapolis. some backstory: diablo cody also penned the kick-ass screenplay for Juno, one of my fave films at TIFF this year. and she was so self-deprecatingly funny at the film’s Q&A that i put a hold on her book thereafter. (here’s a clip of her on letterman, promoting the book.)

and that’s how i spent most of my morning and afternoon: reading about stripping.

i learned all sorts of valuable things, like what a “teeter-totter” is, why white platform heels are better than black when you’re working, and all of the intricate and intimate details of things like “bed dances” and “working the floor.” it was a quick but fascinating read, and the writing sounded a lot like me...you know, if i decided to embrace the pole. the language isn’t for those with more genteel constitutions, so if graphic descriptions of, say, the floor of a peep-show booth or female genitalia or why parachute pants on men are a serious gross-out to an “exotic dancer,” perhaps this book ain’t for you. but if you’re cool with it, you should check it out.

as for the actual jury-duty process today, only one panel (the one group that hadn’t been called yesterday) was summoned to the courtroom today, and that was around 11am. no other panels were called all day, and we were dismissed at 4pm.

two days down, two more to go.

[btw, my apologies to those of you who read the title of this entry and hoped to read about me taking a pole-dancing class or being strip searched at the court house. maybe next time. ;-)]