Hurricane Shatrina

Earlier today, around mid-morning, I was at work. While there, my co-worker Tom and I decided to take a short break and have a cigarette and get a drink. This is a custom for us. At approximately the same time each day, we do this. Today was no different.

I work for a manufacturer of mailing equipment based in Connecticut. Because of this, I work out of the facility of the company who contracts with my company for service. As such, I have no supervisor from my own company to deal with on any sort of regular basis. In fact, I am more or less the supervisor at the site in which I work. I say more because I have the responsibility and I say less because, while I have the responsibility and the workload of a supervisor, I do not get the pay for it. For the moment, however, that’s alright. The time will come when I am promoted and am actually paid accordingly for my efforts. Plus, it’s kind of nice to be able to basically come and go as I please and I speak to my manager approximately once per month.

Anyway, in order to get said drink, we must go into the employee break room of the facility in which I work. Inside this break room is a television. On each and every occasion that I have entered this room around mid-morning, this television is tuned to either Jerry Springer or Maury Povich. Both of these television shows are the talk show version of raw sewage. In fact, I’m fairly certain that these shows are contributing factors to the startlingly rapid downfall of society. Those and reality television. If the aforementioned talk shows are entertainment raw sewage, then reality television is municipal landfill. Holy shit I hate reality television!

Back to the point. This morning, the time in which I walked into the break room happened to be the time in which Maury Povich was being broadcast. I don’t know if you’ve witnessed the continual train wreck that is the Maury Povich Show lately, but let me just say that it is one of the most spectacular train wrecks ever seen. Every show is about one of 3 subjects: Are you my baby daddy? Are you cheating on me? Or wild police videos. That’s it. No substance, no depth… nothing but societal train wreck. Today’s show was about paternity tests. The portion of the show I was unfortunate enough to see was remarkable in its unbelievable display of ignorance.
It involve a woman by the name of Shatrina (you read that right), who was claiming that a newly married man was the father of her 10-month-old daughter. The entire time that Maury was talking to this man, who happened to be sporting a black faux-fur coat, and his wife, the camera would show in split-screen Shatrina backstage. Shatrina looked as if she were ready to assault someone. She was breathing heavily and rocking from side-to-side and shaking. I could tell that she was angry, although it didn’t take a genius to figure this out. During the course of the interview with the faux-fur coat-wearing “gentleman” (I didn’t catch his name) and his high-class wife (hers either), the man repeatedly denied that he was the father of this child, which is fairly standard. He claimed that he had only slept with Shatrina a total of maybe 3 times, as if this weren’t enough times to impregnate someone. Well, intelligent people take more than three times. Stupid people seem to breed with a handshake, but I digress. Latrine, oops, Shatrina, claimed that the encounters between she and the corn-rowed gentleman on the stage had numbered above 50. Here are some of the verbal exchanges that I remember from the show (quoted phonetically):

Shatrina: “He KNOW he ma baby daddy! He e’en laid up in ma be’ an’ give huh huh name”

Pimp Daddy: “She KNOW I ain’t dat baby daddy! Dey ain’t no way I da baby daddy ‘cos I only been wid huh maybe 3 times.”

Shatrina: “You a lie and you know it! I been wid you mo den fiddy times. You been all up in ma be’room and you e-en name ma baby. You da wun name’ huh Liasia-Chanel. Don’ you e-en tra ta be sayin’ you ain’ huh daddy”

Pimp Daddy: “You wrong beyotch! You jus’ tryin’ ta hurt me ‘cos I picked huh ova yo ass.”

Maury then stepped in with his newly dark dyed hair and announced the results og the previously taken paternity test.

“Pimp Daddy, in the matter of the paternity of Liasia-Chanel, you ARE the father”.

Pimp Daddy immediately went into a rage of disbelief that he could actually have to suffer the consequences of his own lack of responsibility in protecting himself. At least that’s what I think it was. I could be mistaken.

I feel as if I should end this blog with an apology. The things I said here sounded awfully racist. The statements I quoted were, and I swear before God on this, taken directly from the show. I added the spelling so that you could get an idea of what it was that I saw. This blog was not an indication of my personal feelings toward any race. It was, in all seriousness, exactly what I saw. The names weren’t even made up. Sad, isn’t it? I feel sorry for the world we are leaving behind.

I’m going to go and open up another Pabst Blue Ribbon now because I need it.