Just Say No

Today I had jury duty. I was surprised at the jury process in Milwaukee County. I had served once before in Walworth County, and it consisted of all of us sitting in a room downstairs waiting to be called to a case. In the Milwaukee County courthouse we had an auditorium where they played a movie, free water, soda, and coffee, vending machines, magazines, a quiet area, fax machines, free wi-fi, and internet terminals for our use. It was pretty nice. My day got cut short, though, when they sent me home at 11:30 AM and said that I wouldn't be needed the next day, either. Sweet!

I called Mike to tell him that I'd be home early. He was at his mom's house with Philo. "Could you meet me out here?" he asked.

"But I don't have a car. Do you mean...ride the bus?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"All the way to West Allis?" I asked, my voice rising. West Allis is about 20 minutes away.

"Sure," he said. "The bus comes down here. Then we'll drive home."

"But...I...I guess," I said. I didn't want to go, but couldn't think of a reason not to.

After wandering around downtown and getting confused about where the stop actually was, I got on the 18 bus to Greenfield Avenue. As I rode my anger rose by the mile. I had wanted to go home. I didn't want to go to West Allis to hang out with Mike and his mom. I didn't want to ride a hot, sticky bus through a sketchy part of town that I wasn't familiar with. And I didn't want to walk fifteen blocks from the bus stop to Mike's parents' house while wearing flimsy sandals and lugging a breast pump. Dammit, Mike, I thought, I can't believe I'm dragging my ass all the way to West Allis on the fucking bus just because you're tired of watching Philo but not willing to come home. I leaned my forehead against the window of the bus when a little voice in my head piped up, Why didn't you just say no?

I straightened up. Yeah...why hadn't I just said no? I could have just said, "Nah, I really want to go home. I'll meet you there when you're done visiting with your mom." But no, he had requested and I had given in automatically.

That's one thing that I've always had trouble with - saying no. If I can do something that someone asks, I generally do it. Sometimes I can't - it might not be within my ability to help someone, or it may conflict with another obligation. But whether or not I want to do something rarely factors into my decision whether or not to do it. As you can imagine, this caused problems when I was dating. I dated some pretty weird guys, and when my friends would exclaim, "You don't have to go out with him just because he keeps asking!" I'd just shrug. If he wanted to see me again, I'd see him again. That was it.

This also causes problems occasionally with Mike. He'll ask me to do something that I don't want to do - for example, taking the van to the DMV for emmissions testing - and then I'll just wind up angry at him later. Instead of just saying, "No, I really don't want to," and giving him a chance to just say, "Okay," or "This is really important, could you please do it?" he just gets bewildered about why I'm so upset about something I readily agreed to do. It's not fair to him.

I guess I need to find the balance between taking care of others and looking after myself.

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow since I don't have to come back to jury duty.