After 13 years of being a legal adult, I was called upon to fulfill my civic duty.

It all started several months back with a notice in the mail letting me know that a summons would likely be coming in the near future. After a few months went by, I thought maybe they’d passed over me.

I kid you not, the day I had that thought was the day I came home to a summons in the mailbox.

Before I continue with this story, I want to say that I was not called into the courtroom for voir dire (questioning), let alone selected for a jury. That is to say, this column aims to share the introductory nuts and bolts of jury duty and has nothing to do with a case.

The paperwork I received instructed me to call a hotline after 5 p.m. the Friday before the Monday I was to report. Calling that hotline gave me the time to report to the courthouse.

I and a few dozen others arrived at 8:30 a.m. and entered the courthouse through the basement ramp. We went through a metal detector and had our items scanned through a separate detector.

We took our seats in the waiting room and watched a video about what to expect from the process. Then, an associate judge came down to give us more localized information and to have us take an oath.

We sat for a while as attorneys and judges met in a peripheral courtroom and determined what cases would need juries.

Shortly after 10 a.m., we were dismissed for lunch and were to return at 1 p.m.

Upon return, a whole new pool of potential jurors was in the waiting room. About an hour later, 30 to 40 of the approximately 100 potential jurors were brought up for questioning.

More time went by, and the rest of us were officially dismissed.

As we exited, I quipped to my friend’s dad – who I had spent the last hour catching up with – “I feel like we made a difference today.”

All joking aside, I do respect the process. And now I have a better understanding of how it all works.

Maybe someday I’ll serve on a jury. Until then, I close out my day of duty by watching “Runaway Jury.”