Jump right into the jury pool

Just when you think you're safe, when you're out there in the park on a nice day, and listening to the birds tweet and watching the clouds floating past, and everybody's smiley and happy ... they come out of the courthouse and drag you away.

It happened twice last week in Greeley because of the knuckleheads who didn't show up for jury duty, and so the CourtFolks had to go out on the streets of downtown Greeley and grab some poor, unwitting passers-by and throw them in the jury box.

Out of 200 letters sent out for jury members, 161 didn't show up. Too stupid to read the letters, I guess.

This shows me that after all this time, it appears I've been wrong.

I was under the stupid impression that if you got a summons for jury duty, YOU SHOWED UP. You don't throw a jury summons away like it was unimportant, like mail from the Democrats or Repubs. You read the jury summons and do what it says.

But now, because of the knuckleheads, we could all be in trouble.

Because I work in the downtown area and see stuff every day, I know what kind of people are down there; and all of them are potential jurors:

» Lawyers. All over the place. You can't swing a cat around in a circle down there without hitting a lawyer.

» One tall, thin man who talks to himself. Or, maybe he's talking to the invisible guy next to him.

» A young guy with a shaved head, large tattoos on his neck, wearing all one color and leading a very large pit bull around on a chain.

» One obviously drunk man, staggering down the street at 10 in the morning, keeping his balance only because of the 12-packs of beer he's carrying in each hand.

» A girl, about 10 years old, who is downtown during school hours and carrying a kitchen trash can and dumping it into the larger city trash cans, for some reason.

» One woman, very professional looking and wearing a business suit, stands on a corner and talks VERY LOUDLY on her cell phone to someone named Louise.

» Two very sleazy-looking TV reporters.

That's your jury pool.

So, I can see it all a few years from now, when I get arrested for something serious, like punching a squirrel in the nose, and they take me into court and I look over to the jury box, and I get to see the "jury of my peers."

One guy, talking to the Invisible Man beside him, who is also a member of the jury; two evil lawyers; a gangster, sitting next to his pit bull named "People Eater," who is also a jury member; a drunk guy with a 12-pack; a 10-year-old girl who should be in school; a woman talking to Louise on her cell phone; and two TV guys who want to interview the squirrel.

And, despite their wacky, wacky ways, each of the jury members is mad because they got pulled off the street and have to serve on a jury.

Thanks to the knuckleheads who don't come in for jury duty, this is the jury who would decide my fate.

I'm a dead man.

The name Gnarly Trombone was taken from an 1871 Cincinnati newspaper that misread Horace Greeley's handwritten name of the Greeley Tribune. Mike Peters is a Tribune staff writer. He may be e-mailed at mpeters@greeleytribune.com.