It was early evening, and I had spent most of the day on the go—grocery shopping, cleaning the house, doing dishes and laundry, cooking meals. I wanted to put my brain and body on pause for a few minutes before opening the bills from the mailbox.
So I flipped through the TV channels, too weary even to check the guide. I’d just leave it up to the Universe to bring some entertainment my way.
That’s when I hit on a classic Saturday Night Live skit.
There were four boxes on the screen, with the face of bushy-haired Rosanne Roseannadanna in the upper left box. Rosanne was worked up about something. Her manic mane bounced about her face like a tangle of chocolate cotton candy.
This should bring a smile, I thought. I settled back and turned up the volume.
Except it wasn’t Rosanne Roseannadanna in the upper-left box. It was some Roseannadanna look-alike, and she was mad about something. No, she was more than mad—she was in a state of high dudgeon. Flecks of spittle flew from her mouth as she barked her shrill rage.
I checked the faces in the other boxes. I didn’t recognize the man and one of the women, but they both seemed a bit calmer. Their faces were stern and serious, but no veins popped on their necks.
And then I saw that the blond lady in the final box was the mayor of Umbrage — Nancy Grace.
It wasn’t a Saturday Night Live spoof I had been watching after all.
It was an actual episode of the Nancy Grace Show.
Which is even funnier.
I don’t remember what travesty was the topic of Nancy’s indignation this night. I had missed the first part of the show, when Nancy mugs for the camera in Oscar-worthy apoplexy over some stomach-churning atrocity. By now she had moved on to the panel of experts to mine the misery still further.
Two of the faces in the boxes — the calmer man and woman — were defense attorneys, the kind of lawyers who would end up at the trial to defend a suspect if the cops ever brought one in. Brave souls, to be sure, for getting an invitation to be the defense attorney on a Nancy Grace panel is like being appointed goalie for a dart team.
“Well, how would you defend someone like this?” Nancy snarled at the faces in those boxes.
“Well, who are we defending?” the man asked — a reasonable question, since a suspect had not yet been apprehended or even named. After all, might the mystery suspect be an unwitting pawn of some horrible reaction to prescription drugs? Might some psychological or intellectual impairment be involved? Will there be a collection of suspects with varying degrees of guilt? Or, once a suspect is brought to trial, might the defendant actually be innocent and falsely accused? These are the kinds of details our legal system asks defense attorneys to determine in a fair trial.
But these are issues of little matter in the District Court of High Dudgeon, where all suspects are guilty and all punishments must be swift and medieval.
The man never got to say more than five or six words before Nancy drowned him out in a flood of indignation.
The woman defense lawyer tried to answer, but Nancy’s Roseannadanna-minion charged into the breach and shouted her down. Righteous spittle flew.
It went that way until a commercial ended the debate — if you could call it debate. Defense lawyers on Nancy’s panel provide the same sort of balance to the issues that a bull’s eye provides for an archer.
And who needs balance when the queen of hypertension is rallying villagers to light the torches and march out into the night to…well, it wasn’t clear what Nancy wanted us villagers to do, other than to raise our blood pressure.
But she was adamant that we do it.
Night after night, she peers into society’s heart of darkness to find the worst that can be found, and then urges us to wallow with her in the whole reeking mess. And every night her show boasts high ratings, bolstered by millions of Americans who choose to end their wearying days dredged in disgust, like dogs rolling in the carcass of a rotting bird in the yard.
I changed channels, because I had seen enough. It wasn’t a Saturday Night Live spoof, but it might as well have been. There’s something laughable about the ever-seething citizens of High Dudgeon — folks who aren’t happy unless they’re incensed about something.
I read somewhere that people who lose their temper are five times more likely to suffer a heart attack within the next two hours. They are three times more likely to suffer a stroke over the same time period.
By contrast, putting a smile on your face — even a forced, mechanical one — brings an immediate physiological effect that includes the lowering of blood pressure and adrenaline, the release of endorphins, and a boost of the immune system.
So you would think that, in the name of self-preservation at the end of a wearying day, I would steer clear of Nancy Grace and her minions of misery — the official Umbrage and High Dudgeon Chambers of Commerce.
But then again, maybe I should watch them more often.
Because those seething sad sacks crack me up.
• Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
