We’re in the midst of jury selection for a criminal murder trial. About 15 minutes ago at the end of a break, the judge directed me to let our prospective jurors in from the outside hallway; breaktime’s over, and we’re going to dive back into jury selection. I opened the door, announced, “Okay jurors, you know the drill!” and they chuckled and filed into the courtroom. After I entered, the bailiff and I kept counting the jurors over and over and we kept coming up one juror short. So I took roll and discovered the name of the missing juror. One juror sitting in the jury box raised his hand. “Excuse me,” he said, “He might be outside in the hallway sleeping.” What?! I started walking back out toward the courtroom front doors again, passing by a DA who was visiting. The DA said discreetly to me, “Yeah, there’s a dude out there who’s asleep on a bench.”

I walked out, looked down the hall, and sure enough, there’s a youngish guy sitting upright on the bench, leaning his back and head against the wall behind him, eyes closed. All by himself. I walked up to him, my heels clicking loudly on the marble floors and echoing down the hall. He didn’t wake up. I stood over him, touched him lightly on the shoulder, saying, “Sir?” No response. I shook him again, harder. “Sir?” No response. I looked up in bewilderment. Oh crap. What if he had a heart attack or a stroke? Do I take his pulse? Should I shake him harder? Looking around, I saw a coworker who happened to pass through an adjoining hallway. He’d seen me talking to the guy, and I threw up my hands in a shrug with my eyes wide, like, “I don’t know what to do!” I walked up to the coworker and pleaded, “He’s not responding! I’m freaking out. Can you come with me just as a witness?” He kindly walked with me over to the guy, and as I approached again, the juror (thank GOD) groggily opened his eyes. “Are you a juror in our case?” I asked him.
He sat up suddenly. “Oh yes. Oh! I’m SO sorry,” he said.
“That’s okay, come on back in,” I said lightly leading him back down the hallway, thanking my coworker, who left us.
“I’m sooo sorry,” the juror said again, and we came back into the courtroom, he took a seat in the audience, and the judge resumed jury selection as usual.

Nobody knew that I practically wet myself out in the hall earlier, which would not have been a good thing, cuz I was wearing a skirt.