Jury Duty

The groans begin for most when the official summons is received. The language is along these lines:

You, Citizen Sucker, have been selected for jury duty, largely because, Citizen Sucker, you did something responsible and timely, like renew your driver's license or register to vote. Based on this responsible behavior, we know we can count on you to be present on [Insert Most Inconvenient Workday Here] at a time when only farmers and meteorologists are expected to be awake and moving.

I received my summons a few years ago, and stupidly postponed it because at the time I was about a month away from wedding day, and OMG, how could I be bothered to expend brain cells toward Justice for All when those brain cells had already been reserved for thoughts of whether or not fake eyelashes were trampy. Last year, the summons indicated that I was not needed. This year, when I am mired in publication deadlines and, oh, not to mention gestating a small eel in my uterus, my uterus which is now the size of a cantaloupe, I was summoned to report to the court o' law at the butt crack o' dawn -- and, gurl, was it a long day.

I won't subject you to the typical groans of waiting (it was actually good reading time) and waiting (I must have peed an average of every fourth minute) and waiting, being reduced to a number (#59 in my case) and then sitting in that jury pool of my peers, meaning people that know not how about reasonable headphone decibel levels nor about how not to talk and giggle TO THEMSELVES appropos of nothing. I'm sure you've heard it or lived through it all before.

I was nearly picked for jury duty, but they wanted me, fresh-faced, big-bellied me to sit on a medical malpractice case for two weeks, but this girl is traveling in that time. No can do, Judgey Judgerrobes! So I was released from my civic duties for the day.

May justice be served. By someone else. See you in three years.

Regression

Must be all the re-runs lately of "Who's the Boss" (Tony Micelli? Hottie boombalottie!) and "The Wonder Years" (still my favorite show of all time) that has me waxing nostalgic. I went to B.J.'s the other evening with the express purpose of buying the bulk box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Of course, a cart full of rations later, I had justified the trip. I've eaten roughly six heaping bowlfuls in three days. Is this my expression of regression? Like when older siblings are expecting a new baby sibling, they suddenly regress and crawl back into their booster seats that no longer fit and play with the toys long since forsaken in an effort to savor the last shreds of their youth before the New One arrives and they have to man up and take out the trash and do their own taxes, even though they're still dependents. Maybe I want that last heaping bowl of sugary cereal before I have to be a role model, or, more practically, a cow. Mealtimes are going to be all about shooting out my udders for the wee one's suckling in a short little while. A strange and terrifying thought in some ways, which is why I think I'm suddenly regressing.

A few of my other favorite bygones which conjure up my girlhood:

Now and Laters, preferably sour apple, maybe a tad melted - Summers at Bay Pool, walks to the Bay Superette where a pack cost $.10...

Umbros - You might not have played soccer, but you were so bad in your purple Umbros with the flourescent orange trim.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - "Secret of the Ooze" was a half-way decent movie. And we watched it enough times to attest to this.

The Cocktail Soundtrack - Oh the hours of sleep I have lost blaring "Wild Again" and "Kokomo" on my cassette tape walkman. Pay no attention to that girl making up dance routines in her nightgown. Pay no attention to her at all.

Handi-Snaks - There's a reason I craved them so bad during my first tri-mester. They are one part food, three parts salt. They are disgustingly, inedibly delicious.

If you ever see me rocking my Umbros (with pockets full of Now and Laters) and chillin' with my walkman, while playing with my TMNT figurine and chomping on a Handi-Snak, please commit me. I am one jelly sandal away from a psychotic break.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

It wasn't as good as I remember it. But it was a good afternoon read. Actually, you can finish Judy Blume's little tome for pre-teens in about two hours.

And what better way to spend part of my afternoon, an afternoon upon which I felt like my fourteen year-old self who had to stay home from tennis lessons and watch soap operas because she had just gotten her first visit from the monthly uninvited guest. The cast of characters in Are You There, God, particularly Margaret and her three secret clubbers - Nancy, Gretchen and Janie - are absolutely obsessed with menstruation. And it's cute, because they're not misinformed, but they were so obsessed with menstruation that when they went to the drugstore, they just ogled the sanitary napkins. I can vouch that when I was twelve, the aisle I spent the most time in the drugstore was not the sanitary napkins aisle. It was the hair dye aisle. Especially since Rebecca Gayheart was the spokesgirl for "Glints" at the time. And Noxzema girl said I should buy Glints. So, therefore, I would obsess over how much my life would be different if there was a glint of rust in my hair. Or maybe cornstarch.

The dialogue in Are You There, God? is shifty. At times, the dialogue between Margaret and the queen bee of the secret club Nancy is very believable. Nancy notices everything about Margare'ts physique. Margaret answers without being too defensive, but still curt. To remarks about her flat chest, she says, "I'm still developing." To Nancy's assertion that she'll soon be a centerfold girl, Margaret remarks, "I'm not so sure...."

Did anyone remember that Margaret's teacher's name was Miles J. Benedict, Jr.? So cute. I'm not sure if I would have appreciated that when I read St. Raphael School's only tattered and near-forbidden copy in the 7th grade.

The whole religious rite of passage in this book is well handled, however. Margaret is on a quest to discover her true religion, since her parents have chosen not to raise her in her father's Jewish tradition or her mother's Christian tradition. The tides that trickle in between Margaret's grandparents bring a mature element to the story and lends a timelessness to this story which is copyrighted 1970.

But did anyone else think that there was a scene in the book where Margaret goes to Woolworth's with her friend and then sits in a dark movie theatre and holds a boy's hand? I know that this was in one of the teen books I read once upon a training bra, but I was so disappointed it was not in this one! If you can recall which book this might have been, please inform. My teen book shelves are lacking.