Aunt Linda on the Jerry Springer Show

*I changed my aunt’s name to protect her pristine reputation

When I was a kid, my aunt was on the Jerry Springer Show for a lesbian love triangle. If you haven’t seen the episode yet, spoiler alert! 

If you ask her about it she’ll say, “They flew us to Chicago, gave us 200 bucks and a script, and I only had to kiss a girl.” It was her friend. 

I suppose my uncle was ok with it. Pot makes you pretty ok with a lot of stuff.  

If you don’t know what the Jerry Springer Show was, please continue making a difference in the world as a well-rounded person. But if you know what the Jerry Springer show was, and better yet, if you watched it… what a ride, huh? And people think TV is trash now. There might not be anything that tops 90s/00s trash television: Maury Povich, MTV Spring Break, Elimidate, Taxi Cab Confessions, Girls Gone Wild infomercials featuring Snoop Dogg (note the double ‘g’). 

I can still picture the fuzz on my microwave-sized TV. The 90s/00s was the peak of white trash television. It was as though cable were made just for us.

My aunt worked through most of my childhood. She took us to swim lessons at the public pool every summer. She never missed a family gathering. She was relatively “normal”. And then, not long after my grandpa died, things started heading south pretty fast. I could go on about this particular family member for a long time. To get an idea, just type ‘drug-riddled aunt trauma’ into my brain’s search bar.  

Yeah, I could go on and on about Aunt Linda but I also have to give her credit. Thanks to her, I can swim like a fish and I win all the ‘my-family-can-out-white-trash-your-family’ contests at parties. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not the only white trash element in the family. I have plenty to warm up the crowd. But when I whip out the ‘my-aunt-was-on-the-Jerry-Springer-show’ card, it’s the clincher. The crowd goes wild. The show is over and I’m handed the trophy and take my place on the podium as the National Anthem plays. Beat that Jeff Foxworthy! Sorry, those are rednecks. Not the same thing. 

I never saw the episode. I might not have believed Linda if other people hadn’t told me they’d seen it. There are only about 4,000 people in our podunk town but lucky for me they all watched Jerry Springer. 

She also brought back a signed Steve Wilcos headshot that my cousins hung in the basement. If you can imagine a bare basement with plastic beads for curtains, a wooden spool for a table, a pool table, and a signed black and white headshot of Steve Wilcos, head cocked ever so slightly as if he were resting an elbow on one knee. 

Didn’t he get his own show later? What the fuck is wrong with daytime TV? Is this what led us to Dr. Phil? 

Anyway, I never saw the episode, but the evidence was right there, staring me down in black and white as I took a shot at the 6-ball in my aunt’s basement.