Dear Milton Adair Tingling,
I am not showing up for jury duty this morning. I am supposed to be at the courthouse in an hour. But, despite your dire warning of $1000 fine, a month in the pokey, or BOTH,...
... I am not coming.
I could say that I am playing hooky because I am on deadline for my next book--due to my publisher on May 10, and I still have about thirty thousand words to go.
I could say that I am already late for a prior commitment: getting this blog up hours ago, and that I was having too much fun with family and friends on Easter Sunday to remember to do it yesterday.
Though both of these assertions are true, I fully intended to show up. But I am staying home because...
...I am afraid to go outside.
I have already fallen down twice this winter--once in December and once in March, and have had to take two trips (pun intended) to the emergency room.
This is my only real defense for shirking my responsibility.
I know that I could have asked for a postponement. But your summons clearly states that I have already had one. Besides which, I did not expect that on April 2, we would be having yet another blizzard*. If today had been clear, I assure you I would have come to 100 Center Street. If my summons had been for later in the day, when the sidewalks will be cleared, I might have risked my bone structure and made it in. But the white stuff is coming down right now--going 8AM, and I am NOT going out in it.
Send the police, if you must. This above is the defense I will mount. If this does not work, I will try this:
If you send me to jail in spite of the above, I warn you: Your name may become the moniker of the villain in my next book.
Unlike the weather, I consider this warning fair;
Sincerely yours,
Patricia King aka Annamaria Alfieri
*PS: There is an imposter in the White House who says there is no such thing as climate change. When he is on trial for that and his many other crimes against humanity, I will gladly serve on the jury. For as long as it takes.
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