After my short stint of jury duty today I can say with certainty that it is no wonder that our legal system is, well, really f*d up. Jury duty is made to be a chore - parking costs more than you get paid for attending. You sit in a dungeon-ous room for three hours only to have your name read out by an illiterate clerk telling you it is okay to go home, the case was settled. What a waste of time. Of course the case was settled. That's what lawsuits are about these days. I suppose on some level I am supposed to be glad that the parties settled their differences. But at the same time, I have a feeling they never intended to go through with the lawsuit. They used the legal system as a threat. And then it came down to the wire. Someone blinked. And for their charade, I had to spend my afternoon in the basement of 400 McAllister. At least I had a good book to read (The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri).