Judge Judy

I wish I would have learned how to properly play but fun with others has never been something natural to me.

Truthfully, it’s still not. My moments of fun happen all on my own. They often stem from a lie or poor excuse about why I will not involve myself in someone else’s idea of fun. Perhaps I conveniently have strep throat again or an evening meeting or my dog is vomiting on my bed.

My lies know no bounds when it comes to getting out of fun. But when my lies don’t save me ad I am forced into uncomfortable social situations, I watch the clock tick down minute after minute until it reaches my moment of freedom.

I have never not watched the clock tick.

When my mother would drop me off for elementary school I would beg her to sit with me in her white mercury sable and watch the moments tick until school started. If she did not grant me my wish I would be turned out from the car to spend the remainder of the ticking moments on the playground.

Yes, play happed on that playground but not for me. The ticking kept beat inside of me. Each breath in and out was one moment passed that I would not have to pretend to play.

I did try to play but my version of play was as foreign to my classmates as theirs was to me. I remember once suggesting a game of Judge Judy as I stood near a balance beam on the hot wood chips of the playground. I figured we could present made-up problems and the person in the game elected to be Judge Judy would choose the winner.

My classmates looked at me like I was an old woman trapped in the body of a first-grader. They did not know who Judge Judy was and obviously did not watch it with their mothers every day at 4 pm.

I suppose that’s when I stopped trying to play and started ticking instead. The game for me was occupying an anxious mind until somebody rang an actual or theoretical bell or blew a whistle.

Fast forward 15 years I would be watching the clock tick down until closing time at the bar with my friends. The ticking in my chest was now not marked with breaths in and out but how many uncomfortable conversations I could suffer through with drunk men.

I would judge each one of their pleas for attention or stories about their self-proclaimed crazy ex-girlfriends with all of the tools taught to me by the wonderfully discerning Judge Judy.