Seen A Car Accident Lately?
by Terry J. Ward

OK, I CONFESS. PEOPLE WILL WANT TO MOVE AWAY FROM ME IN STORE LINES. Mothers will grab their children off the street when I pass, but the truth must be told. I've watched Jerry Springer, and frankly, I'm fascinated.

Now before you get the idea that I weigh 400 pounds, lounge around the house in leopard skin spandex, and have a cigarette butt hanging between crimson red lips, let me just say on my behalf that I'm really a pretty sane, conservative, rather boring person in most respects. This is one that I'm blaming on my kids (Hey, they can shoulder the blame for this. I haven't forgotten about labor yet.) I was minding my own business, doing those nice motherly type things like picking up dirty clothes when they called me into the living room.

"Mom, you've got to see this!"

I don't remember exactly what the topic was that day, but believe me, if someone you love ever asks you to be on this show, run, don't walk, in the other direction. Know that they are the most worthless, sickest individuals that you'll ever have the displeasure of knowing. Take the kids and get out fast. It wouldn't hurt to change your name, too. Recent topics include "Stop Sleeping With My Lover!" (this same topic is played out nearly daily with varying titles) and, my favorite, an episode where "Jerry and a team of experts" - how I love that line! - save a 1200 pound man from his obesity. I didn't happen to see that episode and I'm still wondering how Jerry worked adultery into it.

What is the fascination? I think that part of the draw is that the characters on Springer - they can't be real people - are just larger than life. Kind of like a Liz Taylor - Richard Burton - Madonna -Michael Jackson cavalcade done on low budget. I mean, where else can you see a woman with four painted-on eyebrows slug it out over the man she loves?

This is a show that employs bouncers as stage hands, has a stage manager whose name is probably Bruno and looks like he might know a few people in the Mafia, a show that proves the theory that the heat of the Southern sun does kill off too many brain cells, and is hosted by a man whose intelligence and integrity can best be illuminated by the fact that he is an ex-mayor of a large city who was smart enough to write a check to a prostitute for her services. BUSTED!!

I've decided that watching Jerry Springer is something akin to gawking at a car accident. You really don't want to see someone hurt and bleeding on the road - or in Springer's case, a stage - but something makes you look. I think it's a primordial instinct, like survival of the fittest, that kind of thing. As you drive away, or in this case, the show ends, you feel a rush of relief. You're safe, your world is intact. It isn't you lying there with your guts hanging out. Your husband isn't sleeping with his third grade teacher. Personally, I cannot watch this show without thinking that my life must be the most normal, happy, sane existence in the world. And before you throw stones at me, just remember, you look at the headlines of the Enquirer when you're standing in line at the grocery store, and don't try to pretend that you don't. I told you, you just have to look.