Jury Duty

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is about jury duty. It's not. It's about discrimination against the obese.

Some years ago, and I do not have the cite, the Dallas Morning News ran an article about the community of attorneys who worked at the Dallas County courthouse. These attorneys were prohibited from discriminating against any person by reason of their race, gender, sexual preference or identity, national origin, physical ability or whatever other protected class had been defined in America at that time. They could, however, and did, discriminate against the obese. Obese black people could be challenged peremptorily. So could obese women, obese gays, obese Hispanics, obese cripples and obese anything that the lawyer wanted to discriminate against. The attorneys interviewed indicated that obese people were obsessed with eating and afflicted with flatulence and therefore should not be allowed in a small jury room with a captive audience.

I lived in Dallas County at the time and was appalled. Indeed, I had been called to jury duty several times and had not been chosen to serve. After I moved to neighboring Denton County I again experienced being called to jury duty and being passed over for service.

I realized that this was a story to put in the Motivation and Support.

Because when I get to my goal of being slim, attractive, and not afflicted with flatulence, I'm going to be called to serve on a jury. I'm going to be selected. And I'm going to find for the defendant. I don't care what crime he charged with. I'm going to stick my middle finger in the county's metaphoric eye.