Yes, I watch Judge Judy. She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed with the doily collar and the expensive highlight job and the reader-glasses she rakes off her face in exasperation. She's sort of awful, but on Monday afternoons, after volunteering at the Food Pantry, I flop in my chair in front of the TV and watch.
Boy, she can be a bitch! I boycotted her for two weeks after she yelled at a victim of domestic violence for not going to the police immediately, which she says she would have done. I know she'd be mean to our clients, who have so many strikes against them. She's always asking people if they're employed and for how long, and she's always rolling her eyes at people's misfortunes and telling them they brought it on themselves. People are idiots, jerks, and liars, and she not only gets to decide that, she gets to tell them.
I cringe, but I watch. After three hours at the Food Pantry listening to desperate people who are grateful for any food they can get, people who are in drug treatment programs, people who whisper that they are homeless, I want to enter a world of black-and-white: no gray, no nuance, NO TRAGEDY. I want someone to bang her gavel and say, "That's it, problem solved, we're finished," and have everything fall tidily into place. I really do.
No comments:
Post a Comment