Too Much Television

It has been suggested before that maybe I shouldn't watch any of the "Law & Order" franchise. After all, I can be a bit "alert" when it comes to issues of personal safety and crime. I won't walk my dog on a certain route after dark because there's a dumpster there, and I don't want to make it easy for someone to attack me and quickly get rid of my body. (Why should psychos have it easy?) I also won't get gas or use an ATM after dark, and the idea of keeping a taser gun in my glove compartment has certainly passed through my mind. I check the back side of my car before climbing in, I live on the second floor of my building because of the window/break-in issues with a first floor, and when I worked at the bank, I made it clear to anyone who would listen that should they ever choose my line to hold up, I would hand over any and everything I could, probably without ever touching a panic button, because my life meant much, much more to me than their money. In short, I have enough to worry about without introducing crime dramas into the picture. However, usually I can't get enough of my "Law & Order." I really want Jesse L. Martin to be my platonic male best friend. (I think he would smile at me and agree to sing old love songs whenever I went through a particularly painful break-up.) Sam Waterston looks like my dad. Mariska L. Hargitay, even though we got off to a rough start when you were Anthony Edwards' girlfriend on "ER," I've come to love you, too. And, I've developed some odd crushes on Christopher Meloni and Vincent D'Onofrio lately. (I suppose, if you're as concerned about violence as I am, what could be better than falling for a sympathetic, yet brilliant police officer? I'm working on my issues.) Unfortunately though, I might have finally overdone the "Law & Order" last night. It was the "SVU" marathon - of course - and there was a story about a rapist who stalked speed dating groups. And, also of course, I only recently went through speed dating for the first time myself. (Speed dating is another story for another day, but I will say that it confirmed what I have always known, and that is that dating is entirely awful. Rather than strengthening my resolve "to get back out there," having sixteen bad dates in one evening literally made me sad that I had foregone an evening with my dog, "Cold Case," and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food for the experience.) Anyway, after watching a story about a rapist who met his victims at speed dating, I didn't sleep so well. I think my well-meaning friends might have been right all along. But, what I also found interesting is that this is the episode that finally broke me. Not the ones with gruesome mob murders. Not the random convenience store hold-ups. Not the psychotic jilted boyfriends, stalkers from the coffee shop, or schizophrenics that attack innocent by-standers on public transportation. Nope, it was Dean Cain as a speed dater that got me. I think it must have been the trauma of speed dating combined with the build-up of a "Law & Order: SVU" marathon that really did me in. Even though Dean Cain played Scott Peterson, honestly, he's just not that great of an actor. If he's enough to scare me all on his own, I'm an even bigger wuss than I thought... And I already knew I was a big baby.