A few weeks ago, I got an official-looking, strangely folded and sealed bit of heavy paper from what I assume was some portion of the county’s governing body.

This did not do good things for my health.

I’d never seen anything like it before, and I really wasn’t sure what the hell I was supposed to do with it…except maybe try to read it and wonder which part came next, because government papers are really, really not laid out well.

What I managed to figure out was that I was expected to report for jury duty at some point [the date was nearly impossible to find], and that Colorado doesn’t allow people to get out of jury duty based on work status [employed or un-], financial issues, transportation issues, age, or whatever. You can ask them to reschedule you, but you only get one of those.

…but there are ways to be disqualified. And there’s a website. With an email address where you can ask questions.

As soon as I was done inhaling various pills to solve all the digestive problems that developed a few minutes before I figured out what was going on, I sent off an email asking about the disqualification process. Because, you see, I’m not fit to even be selected to be selected for jury duty, and it has nothing to do with the fact that my head does a lovely impression of that ‘cyclic’ big bang/big crunch shit on a more-than-regular basis [especially when the sun and fluorescent lights are involved].

See, I really don’t…play well with others, to put it nicely. It’s one of those things the military gave me — one of the unadvertised benefits of the Army. Training, housing, pay, health care and a certain number of lucky volunteers get a free mental problem or two.

So, I email. And I get anxiety all over everything. And I wait. And I call my doctor at some point while I’m waiting for a response to my email.

And I wait.

I get a response to the email first, letting me know that I can indeed be disqualified, but I’ll need to send in a note from my doctor, and they’ll accept it up to two weeks after my reporting date.

This doesn’t make me feel any better.

I talk to my doctor, and she says she’ll write a letter for me, and that if I don’t see the letter in about three weeks, I should probably call her back, because maybe she forgot. Because she’s really, really busy, and only works on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

I still don’t feel better, but I kinda manage to forget about it for a little while.

Last Friday, I come home from a visit to an entirely different doctor [which probably deserves its own post], and find the letter waiting for me.

My doctor says that I don’t like people, and that I really wouldn’t be suited for the jury selection process, much less jury duty. And a bunch of other stuff.

I spend the next twenty-four hours in a bit of a panic, because I can’t find the damned piece of paper that started all this shit.

I eventually found the thing, filled out the stupid form, gave them a number where they could reach my doctor if they had any more questions, and mailed it to the address I got in the email.

Yesterday, I got a little blue card in the mail that I’m probably going to have to keep track of for quite a while. It’s a very important little blue card, I suspect, because it says that my medical exemption is on file in their office, and that if I’m ever summoned again, I should get in touch with them and remind them about it.

All that means that I no longer have jury duty, which is a good thing.

But I still don’t feel better about it.