My summer's been great. Well, almost great.

I remember when summers used to last forever. Days that never ended and nights spent outside, running around the yard with all the other neighborhood misfits until my mother, behind the mesh of our screen door and always precisely at 7:00 p.m., called me inside.

And now I'm older and summer doesn't really have the same magic it once did. But that's to be expected, I guess.

So, I'm alive. Well, breathing and eating and sleeping, yes, but alive? That's debatable.

Jury duty turned out to be less of a menace than I thought it would be. I spent all last week nervously calling the jury service telephone number the night before a potential jury duty day to see if my group would be called in. For four consecutive days, nothing. I was so happy, so relieved.

Thursday night I called in for what would be the last time, perhaps a little too cocky, thinking I'd escaped the gnarled fingers of the Los Angeles court system.

Silly, John. Hope is for kids!

They called my group in on the worst day of all: Friday. Fridays are meant to be spent planning fake camping trips with friends, calling up my three-year old brother and telling him he looks like Charlie Brown (an activity my mother thinks is mean). Not jury duty.

But someone must be looking out for me, because after arriving and spending only two hours in the jury pool room, the case that we were all called in for was dismissed or settled, whatever.

And then I proceeded to get lost on my way home, even going so far as to get trapped in the LAX airport. Which, if I'm being completely honest, would never happen to my friends, because they are fully capable of managing a practical and efficient route home. Me, I am utterly at the mercy of my own stupidity.

My summer's been great. How about yours?