Just those two words send shivers down my spine. The show is like an embrace by a great a love. It is comforting, solid and so very, very warm.
I could be in another room and the familiar tremble of Jack McCoy’s voice (Sam Waterson) coming over the speakers of my 5.1 surround sound system would feel like a soft kiss on my cheek. Oh how I love you Jack and your grey moral center.
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| Don't Worry, Everything is Going to Be Okay |
But then something happened.
Netflix that great time-suck of the millennia, only has eight seasons of my beloved show listed on the menu and thus I am stuck. Do I return to TNT (where the show plays in servitude to the syndication gods) and the pathetic interruption of commercials? What happens when there is a continuation episode and they don’t actually play it? How can I sink deeper into character idolization if there is no linear timeline (I mean we are not living in a Deep Space Nine here, there are no Wormhole aliens to mess with the continuum).
And yes, when I reached the final episode of Law and Order on Netflix I will admit to humming the love song to Con Air (How Can I Live Without You) because that’s how much I have my life wrapped up in a police/law procedural show.
So what would be the next logical step for me, a rabid fan of both Law and of Order?
It was to be Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and that, my friends, is where I learned there is a limit to just how comforting sodomy with a banana can be to a television junkie.
To say I was unprepared seems naïve. Yes, I understood that the show was about sex crimes but I figured, just like my old Law and Order, it would move past the horror of the crime and settle into a place where a knowledgeable attorney would come down on the defendant like Sylvester Stallone in Cobra and the bad guy would go to jail.
But oh how wrong I was.
This was not about order; this was about massive amounts of rape, kiddie porn and the occasional violation of an orifice with a previously beloved fruit that will never again be introduced into my mouth lest I vomit and have to go into counseling.
And now, thanks to SVU, I can’t be touched (which just goes to prove that perhaps watching a show about sex crimes for twelve straight hours might not be such a good thing).
(Actual scene that happened at my house)
Husband: So, I was thinking that after I finish up the dishes you and I can spend some time together.
Me: Really?
Husband: (putting his arms around my waist) Yeah, I think you should get reacquainted with Mr. Happy.
Me: BAD TOUCH! BAD TOUCH!
Husband: Didn’t I tell you to stop watching SVU?...Hey, put down the phone, you are not calling the police! Don’t make me get a banana!
(End of scene)
So now I am alone and confused. I spend my days wondering if around every corner lies a faceless intruder carrying a platter of fruit to be used on me against my will.
I can no longer watch any television. Even cooking shows frighten me (I once happened to see an especially phallic-shaped grouping of celery and had to be sated with Tylenol PM).
My life is over.
At least the part that surrounds Law & Order, but I do have hope that perhaps one day, I will be strong enough to look at Netflix again and see that another few seasons of Jack McCoy will be listed and life will go back to normal.
Because if it doesn’t, banana pudding is going to be a catalyst for a major breakdown.
