V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

The Mont and I made a quick overnight trip to Saugatuck on Michigan’s western coast last week. Quick, but lovely. We drove out there Thursday morning. In the afternoon, I read a book outdoors while he practiced at the tiny, musty church where his recital was taking place. Then we roamed up and down the streets of the town, had dinner, and spent the evening walking the beach and watching the sun gradually lower itself to the lake’s horizon. Then we went out to a local bar—for karaoke, of course. By the time we hit our beds, late at night, we both instantly fell into heavy and uninterrupted slumber.

It wasn’t until the next morning, though, when we were in our room chomping down cold bagels from the motel’s so-called continental breakfast, that I realized something about my vacations. I can eat out as much as I want, or dig my feet into sand up to the calves, or visit all the shops selling jams and jellies or impossible knick-knacks or gourmet spices and olive oils that I want, but nothing is going to have that real vacation feeling until that inevitable moment when I’m lounging around on messy sheets, mid-morning, and watching Jerry Springer on TV.

Now, I could lounge around at home, most mid-mornings. Although I like to call it ‘working,’ I think most people would call it ‘lounging around with a laptop.’ I prefer the den sofa to my bed, but it’s still pretty relaxed. I suppose I could also watch Jerry Springer and Maury Povich if I cared to, but I never, ever have. On vacation, however, there seems to be an unheard imperative to leave on the television after The Today Show is over and to let the circus begin.

Jerry and Maury always seem to have the same episodes playing when I watch—or at least they’ve refined their niches so well that I’m unable to discern the exact shades of difference between them. I think on Friday morning Jerry’s topic of the day was YOUR MOM’S A DRUNK!!!, though I didn’t actually see any moms in any of the family tableaux, in which warriors of Wal-Mart glared, shouted so many obscenities that there were minute-long stretches of nothing but bleeps, and then lunged at each other, prompting Jerry’s impressive squadron of ropy-armed bodyguards to leap in and restrain them from punching each other . . . sort of.

Maury was doing the same thing I’ve only ever seen him do, which was to read the results of paternity tests. It goes a little something like this: the mother of the child tearfully confides to Maury that she was seduced by a bounder who made her pregnant and then abandoned her for some cheap whore. Maury tsks, shakes his head, and then asks the woman if she wants them to bring the alleged father onto the set. “Bring him out!” she screams. “Bring him out!”

The father walks onto the stage, cocksure and proud, dismissing the jeers and boos of the audience with sneers and claims of “Nah! That ain’t my baby, y’all.” He then reveals to Maury that the poor victimized mother is nothing but a ho’ who’s after his money. A fight erupts, and Maury’s bodyguards (fewer in number and not as hot as Jerry’s, I’m sorry to say) step in to keep the pair from ripping out each other’s hair by the roots . . . sort of.

Finally the moment arrives. “Michelle,” Maury says. “We have the paternity test results of baby Darnell and they show without a doubt that Jamal. . . .” A long and pregnant (so to speak) pause follows. “. . . Is not the father.”

Jamal leaps up and makes victory punches in the air. Michelle bursts instantly into tears and runs off the set into a holding room, where both the cameras and the crowd’s jeers follow her. After a cut to commercial, another tearful mother is trotted out and the entire process is repeated. It always seems as if the mother turns out to be wrong, too, and it makes the enduring litany of sympathetic coos for her story and the boos for the supposed sire all the more curious; you’d think the audience would catch on to the show’s chauvinist slant eventually.

I don’t know what it is about fist fights, baby mama drama, and sensationalized misogyny that spells v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n-! to me, but whenever I’m in a bed and they bring out the bald bodyguards, I’m the one feeling great about being away from home.