Joke's On Me

Yesterday my husband played a practical joke on me. The thing he knows about me is, I'm gullible.

 I'm talking GULLIBLE. You guys, when I was about 12 my parents told me that all pasta is made from different sizes of dehydrated cow veins. They said that macaroni came from the bigger blood vessels and spaghetti was the little blood vessels and that the hole in the middle was just so small you couldn't see it. AND I BELIEVED THEM. UNTIL I WAS 17 YEARS OLD.

 I'm so gullible that when the movie Mulan came out, my mom told me that there was a race of people in Asia that have yellow slit eyes, like the villain, Shan-Yu. I THOUGHT IT WAS REAL and I spent, like, the next YEAR of my life watching out for people from this slitted, yellow-eyed race of Asians.

I know this is a character flaw of mine, but I can't help it. You would think after 27 years on this earth, I'd have figured a few things out. Nope. My husband exploits this to his full advantage. The thing is, he botched his joke and I STILL fell for it. Yes.

I have problems.

So what happened was, I got a text message from Josh (my husband) yesterday while I was getting ready for work:

Josh: U need to call this number, 704-319-7251, they've called me twice trying to get U. Not sure who it is but it sounds important. Let me know.

That didn't bug me too bad. I got a new phone number not too long ago and people (who are not with-it enough to keep up with my new phone numbers) call various family members trying to reach me (Get with the program, people!).

So I call the number and I hear a bunch of horoscope stuff. I get very, very confused when I'm confronted with horoscopes. I can't understand the point of them. Just the concept of horoscopes, to me, sounds bat-poo crazy. I'm not even sure what sign I am. So when I heard the pre-recorded voice on the other line saying something about an odor from Uranus (what? If I were a horoscope writer, I wouldn't phrase things like that. People might think they're hearing something offensive. Take note, horoscope writers.) I hung up the phone, figuring that there was a mix-up somewhere. So I texted Josh back and told him I thought it was a prank. Then he responded:

I actually gave u the wrong number. I mistyped it. The number is 704-319-7242.

So I called it. And then STUFF WENT DOWN. I heard this:

"Hello, the following is an urgent message from the National Justice Center. If you are hearing this message it mean that our records indicate that you failed to appear for jury duty last Monday morning at 9:00 am. Multiple notifications of your jury summons were sent to you both by the US Postal Service, as well as electronically to the email address we have on file for you. Unfortunately ignoring these notifications and failing to appear in court for jury duty is a Class 3 Misdemeanor. To  ake arrangements to pay the 500 fine for failure to appear for jury duty, press 2. To make arrangements to begin serving the 30 day jail sentence for failure to appear for jury duty, press 3."
 
At that point, I hung up. There was more to the message, and the automated voice was still talking, but I could not process it. I was FREAKING out. It was like having an out-of-body experience. All the sounds around me seemed muffled. I was starting to feel the effects of adrenaline and I started to cry. As soon as I heard the words "failed to appear for jury duty" I knew that all my worst nightmares had finally come true. It's happening, I thought. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?! I'M GOING TO JAIL!!

Josh, unwittingly, had stumbled upon one of my worst fears. First of all, I've made it almost 10 years as an adult without getting a jury summons, so a situation in which I get one and don't know it, seems extremely believable. Second, I watch Lockup:Raw, and Locked Up Abroad, guys. I know that jail is not a place I want to be. I still have nightmares about getting arrested for a crime I didn't know that I committed. I dream up all kinds of scenarios in my head, ESPECIALLY when I get pulled over by a cop. I'm always thinking, "When they run my license what if they find an unpaid ticket or something and I GO TO JAIL?"

Don't ask me why I am scared of this. I've paid all 2 of my speeding tickets, I've paid for the 1 parking ticket I've ever gotten, and I never agreed to carry a stranger's bag across the borders of anywhere, anytime. Through diligent reality-TV watching, I've determined that unpaid tickets and smuggling account for 95% of all jailed criminals. The other 5% are serial killers that try to entrap you by playing recordings of babies outside your door.

I called Josh back, sobbing, and said, "JOSH, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE PEOPLE WANTED? THEY ARE SAYING I DIDN'T APPEAR FOR JURY DUTY!" Seriously, I was hysterical.


Josh said, "Hon, did you listen to the whole message?"

"NO, I HUNG UP BEFORE IT FINISHED. I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD JURY DUTY, JOSH. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME."

Josh said, "Hon-"

"I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT JURY DUTY, I PROMISE, AND NOW THEY'RE SAYING THAT I'M A F-F-F-FELON!!"

"Hon, calm down. It's a pra-"

That didn't even register. "I'M GOING TO J-J-J-JAAAAILLLL!" I was wailing.

"Oh sweetie, don't cry, it's not real."

It was starting to dawn on me then. "What?"

"It was a prank phone line. I thought it would be funny to have you call it. I didn't know you wouldn't listen to the whole thing! If you had, you would've known it was just a joke!"

Me: "I'm not going to jail?"

Josh: "No, hon, you're not going to jail."

"You're a jerk."

"Hon, I'm sorry! I didn't know it would make you CRY. You were supposed to listed to the whole message."

"You're making this up to me."

I finally felt relief but it took a full 15 minutes for me to stop crying.

My husband has no IDEA the things I'm making him do for me to compensate for this horrible, horrible prank. It involves a spa day, a shopping spree, and him making me dinner for approximately the next 5,000 years.