oh, how easily we are distracted

So- jury duty. I was chosen to be in smaller pool from which they chose jurors for a murder trial, the details of which were horribly sad for all involved. However, the two days of questioning to choose said jurors, I was released, but the experience had some moments of interest. Here's my favorite. At some point they asked the entire panel if there was anything major in our lives at the current time that would keep us from properly concentrating. For example, a death or serious illness or perhaps having been laid off. One young guy in the front row raises his hand insistently. When the lawyer calls on him and asks what his distraction is he responds,"Paintball." Yup, you read that correctly, paintball. The lawyer tried really hard to get him to admit that given that this is a MURDER trial, he could put aside paintball for just a week or so an focus on the evidence presented. No dice. He swore up and down that there is no way that he could possibly concentrate even for a few days. He insists that he is having a difficult time even concentrating on the current proceeding. Right. The other lawyer then gets up and explains that often people say outrageous things in order to get kicked off the the case and that they wanted to know that you really didn't want to be here, that they would take that into consideration, and isn't that really what was going on here? Nope, he sticks with his story, paintball. Obviously they sent him back to the jury pool downstairs soon thereafter. Maybe he got assigned to traffic court where his distraction wasn't so important. Here's hoping.