Just Gotta Vent

Okay, so I get this Federal Jury Questionnaire in the mail. I have 10 days to respond. I put it in a safe place so I won't lose it, forget about it for a week, then spend two more days trying to remember where the safe place was. 

This morning I finally remembered, and went to fill it out like the dutiful citizen I am. Then I read the instructions. It must be filled out with a #2 pencil. I laugh. They've got to be kidding, right? I mean, it's bad enough they're still doing this via snailmail, but seriously, a #2 pencil? I haven't had one of those since I took the SATs, and even if I did, the chances of finding a pencil sharpener are about nil. 

I look through the instruction sheet for an alternative. Certainly in this day and age there's a website you can go to to fill out the form. Or maybe you can use a black marker like they have in voting booths. But no. No alternatives. It's a #2 pencil or nothing: "If a questionnaire is not completely filled out, unsigned, and/or completed with something other than a number 2 pencil, it will be remailed to you for corrective action." Hmmm. I don't like the sound of that corrective action thing. 

After turning the desks in several rooms upside down, and shaking out a variety of containers with pens, markers, crayons, and other assorted implements of construction, I finally locate a badly chewed Dixon Ticonderoga 3/H and fill out the form. I wonder how long it will take them to track me down and send me to pencil reeducation camp? Geez, that might go in my permanent file. 

Seriously, how can we expect even our existing systems, much less anything remotely novel, to function if the government is stuck in this kind of timewarp? And if they insist on retaining their archaic methods because somebody's brother-in-law has a monopoly on electronic score sheets, couldn't they at least include the stinking #2 pencil with the form? Heck, they could foil stamp it with some kind of advertising (AAA BAIL BONDS? The Law Offices of Snipp, Snapp, & Snurr?) and make a buck or two in the process . . .