My Jerry Springer story

Photo by David Shankbone via Wikipedia

The passing of Jerry Springer this week reminds me of the time someone called and asked me to sue him.

This is how the phone call began: I said, "Jack Leyhane," and the caller said, "I want to sue Jerry Springer."

Even with this very limited vocal sample, I could definitely detect that the caller had a distinctive accent.

If you guessed that the caller's accent was Received Pronunciation, you are both very funny and completely wrong.

Although I do remember exactly how the call began, I don't recall exactly when it happened. I apparently did not note the call on my time sheets.

But the Internet tells us that the Jerry Springer Show was based in Chicago between 1991 and 2009; I was very much on my own when I fielded this call, so we can narrow it down to somewhere between 2004 and 2009. Because I did not take contemporary notes, the quotation marks used hereafter are taken from my best recollection, and not meant as an assertion that I recall the exact words used. Marilu Henner, I am not.

Now, if I had been blessed with even a modicum of common sense, I would have immediately responded with something like, "Oh, gee, that's too bad. I'm sorry, but I'm conflicted out -- I'm Jerry Springer's agent." But, obviously, I was not Jerry Springer's agent; I never met the man. Also, I never could come up with a snappy comeback when I got blindsided by something totally unexpected. And who would have expected this?

So, instead, I asked something like, "How did you find me?"

"On line," he said. Or, "on the computer."

At various times during the Aughts, when I still harbored dreams of building an actual firm with real-life associates, I dabbled in promotional websites with Martindale Hubbell and West. For a time, I may have had both. But, if this was the kind of inquiry generated by these efforts, I was clearly doing something wrong.

I plunged on.

Not because I had to, obviously. But, from time to time, I have been afflicted with a morbid curiousity. This was one of those occasions: "Why do you want to sue Jerry Springer?"

The story came tumbling out. It seems that Mr. Springer was doing a show on men who were cheating on their wives with one of their wife's relations. My caller, it seems, was carrying on with his wife's cousin. The producers flew them all up to Chicago -- himself, his wife, and his wife's cousin (I didn't ask if the caller took the center seat on the flight up, but I wanted to). The producers picked them up in a limo, then put the whole bunch up in a hotel downtown (no, I didn't ask how many rooms they booked either), and brought them down to the studio for the show. But they didn't get on TV.

As I sit here now I can't remember if he told me that the problem was the show ran long or whether the producers just decided to use one or more different threesomes. But my caller was plainly upset at not getting his 15 Minutes of Fame.

Seriously.

I asked some clarifying questions. "Did anyone promise that you'd be on TV?" I asked.

Well, no, he said.

"What did they promise you?"

"Well, they promised to fly us to Chicago and back again."

"And they flew you up just like they said?"

"Well, yeah."

"And they're going to fly you back, too?"

"Yeah. Limo is coming in an hour."

"OK. And they promised to put you up in the hotel? And they did that, too, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"They feed you and all?"

"Room service and everything. Very nice -- but they didn't put us on TV!"

"Well, sir," I said (I had never asked his name), "maybe someone else might figure it differently, but here's the way I see it: They did everything they promised to do. They didn't put you on the show, but they didn't promise to do that. I don't think there'd be much chance of winning if you were to sue. I admit that free advice is worth every cent you pay for it, but that's my opinion anyway."

My caller wasn't satisfied, but he could see he wasn't getting anywhere with me. Besides, he had a limo to catch.

I hadn't thought about that incident for a long time. But remembering that I had to field calls like that every so often makes my not-entirely-voluntary retirement just that much easier to bear.

I wonder now if the fellow got the center seat on the flight home?