Mock trial with J. Reinhold

Never have I been a soap opera gal. I knew girls in high school and college who recorded the antics of Lucky and Stone and Alexa. Ridiculous plots aside, I could never get past the high school AV club production quality and the accompanying commercials for Depends and funeral insurance. Much like my theory of the Essence Sentence, soap operas were summed up for me on a forced viewing of one of those shows (Does it matter which one, really?) when some girl said, “This happens every time he gets kidnapped.” Every time? EVERY TIME? Your kidnappings are so routine that people see patterns in events? (My Essence Sentence for R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet”? “The midget faints again.” You’re the master, Kels.)

This all poses a problem for someone who’s got a summer vacation and no cable. I realize that every time I leave the house, money seems to leak out of my hand, so I try to stay in and write until I’m close to losing my mind. Then I go get coffee.

My solution: courtroom dramas. There’s Judge Joe Brown, Judge, Greg Mathis, Judge Maria Lopez and Judge Alex. (He’s like the cool guidance councilor of the group, ‘cause we get to call him by his first name.)

Like the cast of The Real World, each judge gives an intro with their hook. Judge Maria Lopez came from Cuba, her intro tells us. (Of course she did.) She is the American Dream! Judge Alex is all about family, Judge Joe Brown got a second chance after a scallywag childhood. That imp!

Now they fight for justice. Who you gonna call when your neighbor cuts down your tree, your friend loses your begle or your sibling won't pay you rent?

A typical case:

On Maria Lopez, it’s sister v. sister. Sister A, Lakisha, is 32 and bad with money, so she gave her 19-year-old sister Quinesha, her $1,800 income-tax refund to hold. Quinesha doesn’t remember her getting the money (“I gotta be focused. You gotta get my attention, especially about money. Anyone in my family know that.”) Except that she later says she does remember getting the money when she finds $100 bills swirling around the dryer.

Pete, the bailiff, cracks wise that it gives money laundering a whole new meaning and Judge Maria Lopez has to put her head down on her judge desk because she’s laughing so hard. The plaintiff and defendant smile politely, because they have no clue what’s going on.

On with the show.

Quinesha says she thought the $100s were different than the wad o’ cash her sister had handed her a few days before, so she assumed this was money of her own she had misplaced. She went shopping with a third sister.

Being a legal eagle, Judge Maria Lopez sees through the story and rules for Lakisha.

Meanwhile, next door, Judge Christina has upped the ante by kicking someone out of her courtroom. Bad ass!

She deals with a case about a wrestler who left his drum set with a fellow wrestler for a year and got pissed that the friend got rid of it.

Judge Christina is different because at the end, instead of hearing from the plaintiff and defendant, we hear from Christina. It’s like Jerry Springer’s heartfelt message/trying to find meaning in the crazy universe he created. At the end of the wresting case, Christina tells us, “It’s ridiculous. They get all dressed up in the costumes, but they’re not real wrestlers. It’s theater.”

I think – I think – there might be a metaphor here, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.