I recently received the dreaded letter again: The Harris County District Clerk requests the honor of my presence in the Jury Assemble Room at 1019 Congress St. Other people, special people, somehow receive such an invitation only once a decade or never. I get mine every two years. It’s time for jury duty.

Looking back, I can see my mistake after receiving my first summons was to actually go. I was young and full of idealistic beliefs that a good citizen does her duty and serves on a jury when called. It turned out to be one of those cases where no good citizen goes unpunished. Once they saw I would show up, they were never ever going to forget me.

More than nine years and five jury summons later, my patriotic fervor has dimmed.

Maybe I would feel differently if I had even once been in a pool for a criminal case, knowing the life of the accused could change forever with our careful deliberation. At the very least, I could pretend I was in an episode of Law and Order. Instead, I’ve been sent to civil court every time. I admit, if the cases involved a sassy Julia Roberts fighting for families poisoned by an evil chemical company, I would happily serve.

Instead I’ve been in the pool or on the jury for lawyers suing lawyers, an insurance company suing an insurance agency and drivers suing drivers over a seven-year-old accident. My best jury duty experience came when my day arrived and the courts closed due to Hurricane Rita.

Yes, our legal system was founded on trial by jury, and the principle of a jury of one’s peers is a tenet of our democracy. Unfortunately in my experience, jury service in Harris County is all about waiting and lawsuits. We wait for hours in the assemble room, which resembles hell’s airport lounge, if hell has an airport. We wait for our number to be selected for a court’s jury pool.

We wait for the bailiff or court clerk to take us down to wander single-file within the labyrinthine tunnels underneath the courthouses. He watches us like a preschool teacher on a field trip with a pack of 4-year-olds. There will be no getting out of line and no bathroom breaks. I am uncertain what he thinks is going to happen to us if he looks away. Is he afraid one of us might try to escape? Are there mobsters down there to bribe us? Will a Minotaur jump out and devour us? That last option is probable. I am fairly certain at least one jury a day is sacrificed to the tunnel system Minotaur. Why else would they need so many jurors?

When we finally ascend back into the light and make it to the correct court, we wait again for the judge and attorneys to be ready. Then we are all seated in our numbered order to be questioned and accepted or set free. It is only then when we find out the case we have spent all this time waiting for is ... accountants suing accountants.

Please stop stalking me every two years, Harris County District Clerk. And I am begging you, people of Harris County, stop suing each other. If you absolutely have to sue, well, it’s not the frivolous but the boring suits I mind. I know all lawsuits cannot be the performance art that was flight attendant with hemorrhoids v. prominent megachurch preacher’s wife.

But come on, Houston, you are so much more entertaining than freeway accident lawsuits. Here, I’ll start us off: Gaines v. Harris County Courts. Excessive jury summons have caused me great emotional pain and mental suffering and possibly soft-tissue damage. We will be calling my doctor and the Minotaur as witnesses.

Now I, too, want my day in court, preferably the same day I have jury duty.