I had a project due today so this is going to be short. What do you mean, “Thank goodness?!!”

The funniest thing I saw today was also about the saddest. I was having my lunch break at home and decided to watch the end of Perry Mason. I always liked the way Perry tricked the guilty party on the witness stand in the last few minutes. You might be interested to know that Perry Mason plays on KPTV Channel 12 in Portland every day at noon, and has been running for 150 years consecutively. It’s still in black and white, and still has a ton of commercials informing people who have been injured in an accident that they need to call the law firm of B. Ann Ambulance Chaser to get due justice in the form of wads of cash, and it doesn’t cost a penny for a consultation, because they are in your court.  Nice play on words.

On the way to getting to Perry Mason, I stumbled on Jerry Springer. Common decency told me not to linger, but I succumbed to curiosity when I saw the title of the show, “My cousin left me for a Tranny,” or something like that. I shutter to think what a Tranny is, and I don’t have time to look it up, darn it. Besides, it was the cousin part that caught my eye. Every time I have the misery of lighting on this show there’s always someone having relations with his relations. It’s moms and daughters with the same boyfriend, or a stepson marrying his stepmother.

I could understand it if we all lived on a deserted island and there weren’t any mates except family. But in the United States of American we have a zillion people desperate for a boyfriend. Why do these people have to stick with their sisters and cousins?

Normal people don’t even get along with their families, much else want to climb in bed with them. But still I gazed on to see a little squirrely guy with hair in cornrows and a too big white shirt with a floppy tie trying to incite the girlfriend and the Tranny to get in a wrestling match. The girls were on opposite sides of the stage, and there were about a dozen security guards on alert to standby and watch the fight for a few minutes before breaking it up. The audience was chanting and shaking their fists in the air, trying to incite a riot.

The two women lunged at each other like it was on cue and started scratching and slapping, pushing and shoving. Jerry Springer, who had a big logo on the screen but just in case you didn’t realize this trailer trash display of tempers was his show, he was holding a sign in the hand he held his microphone that said, “JERRY SPRINGER,” was walking around with a bemused smile, hoping for good ratings.

Well, security finally broke up the brawlers, and the little pip-squeak of a boyfriend had a smirk on his face like the cat that ate the canary, and I moved on. Perry was a lot more civilized, and at least I keep my lunch down watching him.  And that Paul Drake beats a shrimp cousin any day.