Tuesdays with Morons

Domestic Violence Court at the county courthouse is not the ideal place to meet your future ex-husband. It could however be a really fun place to spend an afternoon snuggled up with a diet soda and a bag of Tostitos. It was a Tuesday and my friend Daisy had to endure the pleasure of filing a restraining order against the husband she had married only 2 weeks prior. Apparently, the guy was secretly popping pain meds and really just looking for a housekeeper/cook/nanny/sex goddess.

It was a bustling day at the courthouse and we were excited at the notion of surrounding ourselves with many interesting wife beaters. While Daisy made nice with the police officer tending the courtroom door, I plopped my fat rump on the wooden bench unknowingly in the defendant’s area. Innocently I nibbled on my Tostitos and fingernails, always a good combination in my book, and watched the hordes of women and men pouring into the place. I had to ask myself, who am I to judge? Just because the guy next to me had a giant black, and red no less, scorpion tattooed on his shaved head, and just because he gently rubbed his girlfriend’s very pregnant belly while waiting for his orders to not throw his very pregnant girlfriend down the steps, and just because he actually wore one of those proverbial white t-shirts that resemble a tank top, does not mean he is a bad person.

It seems most of us spend our entire existence predetermining, judging, speculating, and scrutinizing the people we come in contact with. It’s rather easy to do it and why shouldn’t we? Our lives are probably clean as a whistle. It seems almost tiresome to waste all that good brain energy on thoughts of disgust, jealousy, and cynicism. At this stage in the game, with many mistakes under my 40 something year old belt, judging and focusing on what other people may or may not be is taking up way too much of the little time I may have left on this funky little planet.

So, hopefully the next time I’m hanging around domestic violence court with any of my friends I may think twice about the guy sitting next to me in his Charlie Manson for President t-shirt. Who am I to judge that guy? That strange little man could be thinking the same judgmental things about me. Well, probably not until after the crack high wears off, but it does make me think. I am not squeaky clean by any means. Those 4000 stupid decisions I have made in my life also have come back to visit me on occasion. It’s that thing we call, Karma, I guess. I go through life thinking I will never have to face that jerky boyfriend who threw me out of his moving car on I-75 just because I changed the radio station. Or I will never have to again think about the ex-husband who ran off with the aspiring hotel maid because she reminded him of his mother. They could be very happy and adjusted humans by now. Just because I like to spend my Tuesday afternoons with morons at Domestic Violence Court judging the wife-beating, scorpion tattooed, crack head Charlie Manson cult followers does not mean everyone does. Who am I to judge anyway?