So, I have a confession to make: I am addicted to all of the “Court” shows. I don’t mean Law and Order (though, I am pretty hooked on all flavors of L&O as well), I mean… Judge Mathis, Judge David Young, and The People’s Court. I’ve found myself in a ‘housewife’ like situation over the last year and being home alone can get boring - the TV can provide noise and comfort and before I knew it, I was tuning in to hear Judge Marilyn Milan (The People’s Court) rant at people in both English and Spanish - ON PURPOSE. This is my secret shame, and my husband is not happy about this, not happy at all.
This week, I find myself in the U.S., and while channel surfing for some daytime television to entertain me, I encountered a whole new kind of court show. It is called Jury Duty. The premise of Jury Duty is quite simple. Standard small claims cases, families suing each other over small amounts of money being the gold standard of these shows, decided by a “jury” of “celebrities.” If the “jury” cannot come to a verdict, the “judge” (in this case former Defense Attorney Bruce Cutler) will decide. This episode that I can hardly tear my eyes away from features “celebrities” such as Elayne Boosler, and the guy who played Gunther on Friends.
This is a whole new world of court shows, folks. A brave new world. I’m not sure that we, as a people, are ready for this world.
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Court TV, frankly, scares the crap out of me. I while back, I spent 6 hours in a Doc in a Box waiting room, having gotten ill the day after Christmas. I had a book, so I had a certain measure of protection from waiting room monotony, but six hours is a hell of a long time to wait, and so after a while, I started paying attention to the TV. Apparently, during filming hiatus, Judge Wapner and Judge Judy had a host of love children, and all of them managed to get their own TV judge show. There was Judge Andy, and Judge Sally–I thought I heard a Judge Mary Ellen or Jim Bob, but that might have been the fever talking. So it was court show after court show after court show–as though Jacob Marley had decided to give me a quick tour of the fourth circle of hell.
And the defendants and plaintiffs were as frightening a collection of gene pool rejects as you would ever hope (fear?) to see. I thought we had reached rock bottom when a woman sued her son’s ex-girlfriend for bail money, particularly after it came out that the mother let the girl manufacture and distribute meth out of her house in return for fresh merchandise. Even Judge Judy seemed vague nauseated, and you’d have thought that she’d seen everything by now.
Then we had the final case. A man’s dog, a German Shepherd/Akita/TIMBER FREAKING WOLF mix had knocked down his son-in-law’s 5 year-old daughter. Thinking that the dog was attacking his daughter (understandable, as the daughter was screaming for help), the father had thrown a Super Soaker at the dog, getting it to move away from the girl, but breaking the dog’s leg in the process.
** The father-in-law was sueing the son-in-law for the vet bill. **
Judge Judy looked at this guy as though he were the flat-out dumbest guy on the planet (and I’m at a real loss to think of any competition he may have), and simply said “If it had been me, the dog would be dead. Period” Case dismissed.
As for me, I eventually emerged with a diagnosis of an upper respiratory & sinus infection, both butt cheeks smarting from a steroid shot and an antibiotic shot, prescriptions for more antibiotics and enough codeine-laced cough medicine to give me at a fighting chance to get more than three hours of sleep, as well as the unrelenting dread that comes from the realization that these people can vote.
(Though to be fair, the fact that I can vote probably gives some of you nightmares as well.
)
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