God, I love Judge Judy

Seriously. Check out what I have to look forward to when I get home from work today:

Case #1: Three Rottweillers allegedly invade a woman’s home, destroy property and attack her terrier.

Case #2: Parents dispute responsibility for damages after a party where their minors were allegedly served alcohol.

Home Rottweiller Invasion! Minors in Possession! And that's just the first half hour! A second dose of awesome is delivered immediately thereafter!

The best analogy I can think of: A week after my son was born I woke from one of those 2-hour lapses in consciousness that constititute the closest approximation of "sleep" available to a new parent. I knew immediately that Something Was Wrong. A new Something, a Something that had not been Wrong before. Within the hour I was calling my OB's office from the bathroom because my life's blood was in such a rush to exit through my ravaged birth canal that I couldn't get up from the toilet without leaving a trail of gore to foil even the mightiest Swiffer. My husband gathered up our son and drove me to the emergency room, into which I staggered looking like an extra from Law & Order: SVU, bleeding through my industrial-strength postpartum maxi pad, my pants, AND the bath towel I was clutching to my crotch. I made such a ghastly sight that a woman in the waiting room gasped and said, "Oh, honey, you're having a miscarriage!"

Damned rude of her, in retrospect. The old busybody.

ANYway, my OB eventually showed up and scraped me out and then checked me into the hospital for the night with a technological advance rivaled in fabulousness only by TiVo: the morphine pump. All through that glorious night, whenever the pain of my traumatized womb began to stalk me, my defender, my Lancelot, my dearest Morphine could be summoned to slap down a Temporary Restraining Order with only a touch of the button cradled in my grateful hand.

That's what it's like to have Judge Judy twice a day every day, like I get to keep pushing some button of awesome. I love that moment after watching the first episode when I get to revel in the fact that I'm only half done. There's just something so perfect about that show, like it's this pocket parallel universe, this special place where over and over you get the rush of witnessing people getting exactly what they deserve.