*
Last night, I dreamt that I was pregnant with my stepdad’s baby, that I was a sexed-up, drugged-out teenage slut, that I was illiterate and morbidly obese and I had been caught on tape with a sexy decoy ... But I didn’t seem to care, because I knew that Maury Povich was gonna come along and save me. Maury is the patron saint of the disenfranchised women of my generation.
I watch daytime tv - I know what’s up. Maury is our knight in shining armour. For some of us, Maury’s all we got. All the other cats - Jerry, Ricki, Montel & Jenny - they just wanna mock or criticize - they just be hatin’. Maury ain’t got nothin’ but love. Maury’s there to help. And Maury gets results. Maury’s teen sluts always repent. They appreciate thier makeovers and lie-detector tests. Maury’s word is the word of god.
I am one hundred and thiry percent sure I am not the father of that baby!
I ain’t the father, cus she ugly!
I ain’t the father, cus she a fat slut!
I ain’t the father, cus we only had sex once!
I already got two kids, I don’t need anymore!
That baby look more like you, Maury!
But paternity tests don’t lie, and when our lost boys find out the news, they’re faced with the double shame of fathering a fat slut’s child, and of fathering the child he publically proclaimed he didn’t have anything to do with. Usually, the shame is too much, and Peter says, somewhat implausibly, that he’ll face his resonsibilities, at least financially. But sometimes, it turns out that, despite his sloppy denials, he was right - he's not the father, and that’s when all hell breaks loose backstage. That paternity test was this girl’s last chance to turn her life around. It’s not easy being a knocked up teen slut, and knowing who the father is can really make the difference. But when the test comes back negative, the teen slut not only goes back to square one, but now she has the added humility of being wrong about her baby’s daddy, and that means she’s even more of a slut than we originally thought.
Maury’s the only one willing to look past her sin. Maury’s gonna step in where other men have failed her. Maury’s gonna make a proper women outta her. Maury’s gonna kepp inviting her back to New York, he’s gonna keep putting her up in hotels. He’s gonna keep giving the Peter Pan’s in her life DNA tests, and until he finds that teen slut a real man to take care of her baby, Maury’s gonna keep playing the daddy role, but with a decidedly pervy twist. We are all Maury’s wives, each and everyone of us, and we offer ourselves up to it with our lying and our cheating and our promiscuity. It’s for own good.
But what does our hunger for those paternity test results say about us? Needing our baby’s dad to stick around is SOOO pre-1980’s. Didn’t these broads see that movie “Baby Boom”, where Diane Keaton’s, like, a stockbroker or whatever, and her boyfriend doesn’t want to raise thier baby with her, and so he leaves, and then she gets fired cus she’s preggers and so she’s not, like, hard-as-nails anymore?. But then what does she do? She takes junior to Vermont and starts her own business, making canned food or something, and she picks up a new, younger, outdoorsy type to keep her warm when the snow strom hits. Face it, teen sluts: most men leave when they find out there's buns in our ovens. All Maury can do is embarrass them into paying our rent. He can’t make them love us. But that’s like, in a way, okay. Because Maury loves us, and he's man enough to go around. And we can ALWAYS use some help with the rent.
And in my dream I’m begging for it, I’m like “Love me Maury. Shelter me from from the Babylon that has corrupted my sweet soul. I don’t care if I’m not the only one. You’ve got more love in one little figner than my baby’s daddy’s got in his whole fucked up soul. Deliver me from sin! Maury, with you on my side, I will repent!”
Then I wake up.
*This text was originally written as narration to a short video from 2002 called "January", part of the series The Year of Living Dangerously .