By Frances Bryce, June 11, 2020 — When I first started quarantine on March the 20th, I thought it was only going to be for a week or so. Then, when it went to [the end of the] month I said okay, I’ll do some chores around the house and I picked up some books to read that I had bought and never read. So, this went on and on until I finally decided that I was going to be in the house for a while and there was no let-up in sight, so I started to declutter and did the other things.
Finally, I’m not big on TV and I don’t have Netflix so one day I just happened to scroll around and I saw some judge kind of show. So the last time I saw it, it’s really an experience, so if you’ve never seen one you really should treat yourself.
One of the shows I’m going to share [is about] this young woman who had met a guy on one of these social media things and they were going to meet. Apparently, they both had an interest in cooking so they were going to a cooking class. So she said she got all dressed up and she had received the information that said dress casually. So she was going to meet this guy for the first time because all of their communication had been done on social media. She showed up with a new dress and some suede shoes and they were heels. What she was suing for was during the cooking event, this guy was swirling his pan and some of the grease or whatever got on her shoes and she said they cost $700. The judge wanted to know why would she wear those shoes and [the woman] said they were comfortable and that she wore those heels all the time. So, at the end of the program, the judge said, “Well, no one would expect you to wear suede shoes and heels,” but [the woman] kept contending that they were comfortable for her and she had on some during trial. The judge finally awarded her $250 because she felt like she was partly to blame for it, so the guy lost. She wanted $700. My feeling was after the judge made the decision — which I had no part in — is that I wouldn’t have awarded her anything, because if someone showed up to a cooking class with suede shoes that cost $700, so she had no receipts to show she had even had it.
So then I had watched another show with a similar kind of thing where people had borrowed money and then they said, “Oh, it was a gift,” so it was entertaining to me, but I hate that I had to watch that most of the time. But that was uplifting in a way that I had never experienced it before.
I think it was the one that’s called The Verdict and the judge’s last name is Hatchett, I believe. My son and daughter both grew up living in California and they love Judge Judy because she goes right to the courts. You know this judge, she listens and she comments. Judge Judy doesn’t listen to any of that. She wants to know what you did. Judge Judy when I’ve seen her can be quite insulting. She’ll say your elevator doesn’t go to the 13th floor — any kind of remark. And that’s what my son says he enjoys because she doesn’t go through [cases]. If you have a contract you have to show it to her. She would never have rewarded that woman [from the heeled shoes case episode] because she had no bills for the shoes and if you were not too smart to wear suede $700 shoes — if she paid that much for it — to a cooking class.
That’s how I got through some of the days [of quarantine].