by E. Reltso
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE JUDGE WHO GOT JUDGED
There once was a man who loved more than anything to judge people. His fondest pastime was to go to the mall or sit at the park making judgments about everyone who walked by. He judged the fat ones to lack self control, the skinny ones to be anorexic, the short ones to be underachievers, and the tall ones to be arrogant. It didn’t matter whether his judgments were right or wrong. He just liked to judge.
Naturally, the man studied law and became an attorney, and after a few short years of legal practice, he became a judge of the local court. This allowed him to be paid to do what he liked best (which is always what a person should do in respect to choosing a career). He would gleefully dispense judgment all day to the unfortunates who were brought before him, and who usually left his courtroom feeling worse than when they had entered it. When 5:00 o’clock came and the man had to stop judging, he was sincerely depressed that he had to wait a whole day until he did it again (his staff, on the other hand, were sincerely depressed at only one time of day—8:00 a.m. when they had to start working with him)
The man’s least favorite time of year was when he had to take his vacation, and he was forced to go without making judgments on people for two whole weeks. He would usually go to Europe or China or somewhere exotic and sit in his motel room and sulk at all the judging back home that he was missing out on. It was no fun judging foreigners, since they were obviously all inferior.
(It should be noted that the man always took his vacations alone because he was not married. Since he enjoyed judging all the girls he ever took out on dates, he had never found one who would accept him)
One year the man decided he would take his vacation at home. He could sulk just as well in his own living room as he could in some strange motel abroad. And he could go to the mall and wave to all the people he recognized who had appeared in his courtroom, who would usually glower or frown in return, then turn and walk swiftly away.
About a week into his vacation a very strange thing happened. He had a visit from a powerful fairy who enjoyed meddling in other people’s business. She appeared suddenly in his living room in a flash of light, and the man instantly judged her as being overly fond of chocolates since she was rather plump.
Without wasting time, she waved her wand and dispensed her meddling. “You shall experience three days of judging,” she droned, “each day different, and yet each the same. And then, perhaps your ideas about judging will change forever!”
The man just grunted and said, “Breaking and entering, trespass, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. I’ve got four legal claims against you already. I’m calling the police!”
The fairy just smiled sweetly and disappeared in another flash of light, leaving the man to ponder her message (which he did for about 13 seconds, and then went to bed).
The next day, the man put up a ‘No Trespassing’ sign in his living room in case she came back, and then went to the mall for his usual day of judging and waving at people who hated him. As he was leaving the house, he saw that the paperboy was late with his paper as usual. He could just see him out the window, coming down the street. “That boy is utterly irresponsible,” he muttered under his breath. Instantly the boy stopped his bike, unloaded all his newspapers, and threw them into Mrs. Johnson’s petunia bed. Then he pedalled off in the direction of the ice cream store.
Shrugging his shoulders at the boy’s odd behavior, the man got into his car and drove to the mall. On his way there he judged several drivers to be reckless, and was astonished to see—immediately after making this judgment of them—that they picked up speed and swerved dangerously down the road in the most reckless manner possible. One of them passed within inches of the man’s car, causing him to turn white and note down the license number to pass on to the police.
After arriving at the mall, the man made his way to his favorite bench where he could see almost everyone who entered or left. It was a perfect spot for waving at people he recognized from his courtroom (No one ever waved back, of course).
After about fifteen minutes, the man saw two young fellows who had appeared twice in his courtroom, being charged with minor crimes both times. He waved at them and smiled (they pretended to ignore him), but under his breath he muttered, “Absolute hoodlums and troublemakers, that’s what they are!”
Instantly, the two boys turned from where they had been walking quietly down the mall and bashed the window of the nearest store. It shattered to pieces. When a horrified sales clerk came up to protest, one boy knocked the clerk to the floor. Then they took off down the mall, where the judge saw them being apprehended by the police and mall security.
Our hero smiled in grim satisfaction, saying to himself, “I’ll probably be seeing them in my courtroom next week.”
A little later, the man saw a lady approaching who had appeared in his courtroom during a highly contested divorce matter. She and her former husband had fought bitterly over the distribution of the marital property. She was walking along now with her new husband, holding his hand and smiling.
The judge waved, but under his breath he muttered, “She’s an old witch who enjoys nothing more than picking on her husband.”
To the man’s amazement, the lady’s face instantly turned green, and several warts appeared. Her nose grew long and curved, and a pointed, black witch’s hat suddenly popped onto her head out of nowhere. She was suddenly clad all in black, and seemed to have aged as well, so that she looked quite a bit older. She turned and started hitting her husband with her purse until the poor, stunned man retreated down the mall with the witch in hot pursuit.
Our hero sat in shock, gaping at what he had just seen. It couldn’t be! And yet it was! The plump fairy had said he would have three days of judgment. Had she given him the power to pass judgment on people that would instantly come true? It was impossible for his trained, legal mind to accept such a thing. Yet he also could not deny what he had seen.
He decided to check it out. Since he was getting a bit hungry, he got up and went to the food court. He went up to a Mexican fast food place, where a surly looking woman with a perpetual scowl on her face asked, “What’ll it be?” Without thinking (and before ordering), the man judged her to be an uncouth person who would be far better as a prison guard than a server at a fast food place.
Instantly the scowl on the woman’s face turned to an ugly frown. She picked up a bowl full of sour cream and threw it in the judge’s face. Then she said, “I quit! I’d rather go work in a prison than stay here!”
You would think that having a bowl of sour cream thrown in his face would have made our hero angry. In reality however, he was elated. The lady’s behavior had confirmed the unbelievable truth of the fairy’s gift. Any judgment he made on people would instantly come true! It was a power the judge had long dreamed of having, but knew it was impossible to obtain. But now it was possible! He could pass instant judgment on people and give them exactly what they deserved. He was ecstatic.
Excitedly the judge wiped the sour cream off his face and contemplated what he should do with his new found gift. The fairy had said he would only have three days of judgment. What a pity he wouldn’t still have the gift when he went back to work in his courtroom. But he would make the best use of it during the three days he had it.
After a moment’s reflection, the man decided the most appropriate recipients of his new gift should be his fellow judges and clerks at the courthouse, since he had long since concluded that they were all stupid. So he rushed out to his car and over to the courthouse.
He first went into the observer’s section of the courtroom where the chief judge was presiding over a complicated partnership dispute. Although he smiled and waved to the chief judge on the bench (who frowned in return), he also said to himself under his breath, “He has the mental capacity of a kindergartner!”
Immediately the chief judge’s eyes glazed over. Then he turne
d to the clerk and said, “When’s recess?”
The startled clerk replied, “It’s whenever you want to call one, your honor.”
“Goody!” cried the chief judge, jumping up on top of his podium. “Let’s all go to recess!” he cried in glee. “I’m first on the monkey bars!” Then he jumped off the podium in front of the startled attorneys and crowd, and raced out the door.
Snickering in pleasure, our hero went to the next courtroom where another one of his fellow judges was presiding over a heated divorce dispute. Our hero liked this judge even less than the chief judge. Upon entering the courtroom, he immediately said to himself, “He’s nothing but a bird brain!”
Instantly, the judge jumped out of his chair, flapped his arms, and tried to fly. Then he started pecking at all the attorneys in the room, and at the divorcing couple. Our hero smiled joyously to himself at the uproar that the judge was causing, then went to the next courtroom to dispense his gift once more.
Within a few minutes the courthouse was in an uproar. The oldest judge had been turned into an old goat, and went around bleating and butting into people. Clerks were throwing paper airplanes at each other or babbling incoherently like idiots (since that’s what our hero judged most of them to be). More than one of the contesting parties in court was now wandering the halls as a dodo bird, while others were staggering about as mindless oafs, who frequently tripped over the dodo birds.
The only ones who had been little altered by our hero’s judgments were the attorneys, all of whom he had judged to be ego-maniacs. They stood around preening themselves, bragging, and putting each other down the same as always (this was one of our hero’s few judgments that was accurate).
After making a madhouse of the court building, our hero decided to go home and share the joys of his new found power with all of his despised neighbors. Soon the neighborhood gossip on his street had sprouted elephant ears, the neighborhood grump had turned into an ugly old crab, and most of the kids in the neighborhood had turned into an assortment of rats, cockroaches and low down skunks. The man noticed that his judgments of people would wear off in half an hour, and the judged person would then return to their normal self. When this occurred, if the judge were still watching them, he would gleefully judge them again, and then watch in satisfaction as they blundered about in the form of whatever creature he had judged them to be.
When the man went to bed that he night, he sighed in complete contentment. He couldn’t remember when he had had a more satisfying day. He dropped off to sleep with a smile on his face, and dreamed the night through with visions of judging people to get exactly what they deserved.
The next morning, the man rose excitedly for the new day. Stepping out onto his porch, he saw the paperboy approaching, late as usual. He immediately judged him to be a slobbering, baby-faced brat. To his surprise, the boy kept coming and didn’t change at all. He wasn’t slobbering, and his face hadn’t changed to look like a baby. What had gone wrong?
The boy rode his bike up the man’s front walk and handed him his paper. “Here you are, sir,” he said politely. However, the boy was thinking that the man was a sour faced old egghead.
Instantly, the man felt a strange sensation across his face, as if it were being stretched and wrinkled at the same time. “Thank you, boy,” he said thickly. He had a strange taste of egg in his mouth.
The boy’s eyes grew as big as saucers, and he stared at the man’s face. Then with a yelp he pedalled off on his bike as fast as he could go.
Shaking his head at the boy’s odd behavior, the man went back inside. However, when he happened to glance in the hall mirror, he was shocked at the bizarre transformation that had somehow happened to his face. It was all screwed up in a sour expression as if he had just gulped down a gallon of unsweetened lemon juice. In addition, his whole head was swollen into the shape of an egg! And when he felt his head, it felt soft, as if it was hard boiled!
Of course the man didn’t know anything about what the paperboy had thought, so he was completely mystified as to what had happened to his head. He grabbed a hand mirror from the bathroom and sat around staring at himself and trying to figure out what had happened for a full half hour. At the end of that time, to his amazement, the sour look on his face disappeared, and his head changed from a soft egg shape back to its normal rock hard peanut shape.
Still mystified, the man decided to go to the mall again to wave at people who had appeared in his courtroom. On his way there, he judged several people to be reckless or foolish drivers, but none of them changed their driving habits at all. However, as he approached a yellow light, when he tried to speed up to make it through the intersection before it changed to red, he found that he was completely unable to do so. Unknown to him, another driver had judged him to be one of those super slow drivers who couldn’t go fast if they wanted to. Our hero had to screech to a stop and wait cursing for the light to change. After that he drove slowly to the mall, unable to go nearly as fast as he would have liked, no matter how hard he tried.
After reaching the mall, the man took up his regular bench and started looking for familiar faces. He soon spotted a man he had ruled against in a property dispute. He smiled and waved, but judged him to be a greedy, frenzied man who would do anything to get property or money. Our hero was very disappointed when the man’s behavior didn’t change at all. What was wrong? The fairy had said he would have three days of judgment, but it seemed he had only had one.
However, the man who he waved to had now seen the judge. He frowned, and immediately judged him to be a complete moron. Instantly, our hero’s thinking became muddled and so confused that he no longer knew who he was or what he was doing in the mall. He got up and started staggering about, getting into people’s way, knocking things over, and generally making a nuisance of himself. This lasted for half an hour, when suddenly he came back to his senses. He found that he was standing knee deep in the mall’s fountain, and was holding a garbage bag that was dripping something stinky. He had no idea where the bag had come from, or why he was holding it.
In embarrassment at the sniggers of the passersby (some of whom recognized him and smiled and waved), he quickly got out of the fountain. However, before he had taken two steps, one of those who recognized him (who was another person he had ruled against in his courtroom), said under their breath, “that guy is a bug-eyed creep!”
Instantly, the judge’s eyes grew as big as saucers, and he dropped to the ground and began to creep around on the floor. He just couldn’t help himself! He kept this up for half an hour while everyone stared and pointed and laughed. Worst of all, since his mentality hadn’t been judged this time, his mind was as alert and active as ever. He tried desperately to make his eyes less wide, or to stop creeping along the floor, but he just couldn’t do it. And he couldn’t figure out why.
Finally, after half an hour, his eyes went back to normal and he was able to get up off the floor. However he was still at the mall with lots of people around, and another person who had been in his courtroom (and lost their case), said to themselves, “What an idiot! He’s got less brain power than a mosquito!”
Instantly, the man’s thoughts turned to mush, and for the next half hour he stumbled through the mall doing stupid things. He would snatch ladies purses off them and dump the contents on the floor, or stoop down and untie people’s shoes, or pick up store merchandise and throw it at people. Finally, he was escorted out of the mall by security, and when he came to himself at the end of half an hour, he found that he was in a large garbage bin, gleefully tossing its putrid contents over his head.
The man was very shaken by this time. He still didn’t know what was wrong, but something clearly was. He decided to go home, and slunk off to his car as quietly as he could. However, right as he was reaching it, he ran into a lady who he had ruled against in a child custody matter. With undisguised venom (and a good deal more honesty than most of his enemies), she went
up to him and said viciously, “You are a jerk!”
Instantly the man’s head began to twist and jerk uncontrollably. He kept jerking and jerking like crazy. Meanwhile the lady had gotten a whiff of his garbage soaked clothes, and said in disgust, “You also stink to high heaven!” Since the man already smelled bad, this judgment had no effect, at least here on earth (however we can presume that for the next half hour in heaven, all the angels had to go around with clothespins on their noses).
Because the lady had spoken her judgment out loud, the man finally understood what had been happening. Naturally he was extremely angry at the fairy for having given him such a bum deal. It just wasn’t fair! How dare she subject him—HIM of all people—to the menial, childish judgments of other people! After all, he was a trained judge and knew how to give good and accurate judgments. But the rank and file people he met on the street obviously had no idea how to judge correctly.
The more the man thought about it, the madder he got. As he drove home (jerking all the way), he became so angry at the fairy that he decided to file a criminal information against her so she would be arrested. But in his heart he knew this was useless, since she was, after all, a fairy, and wouldn’t likely be found.
After taking a long shower (during the first part of which his head kept jerking uncontrollably) the man spent the rest of the day at home with the shades drawn, and refused to open the door to anyone. He knew if he answered the door, whoever was there may judge him, and he would probably be in trouble. Fortunately for him, no one else saw him for the rest of the day. (No one ever came to his home unless they had to, since everybody hated him) He went to bed that night still fuming at the fairy. He knew there was one more day of judgment left, and wasn’t sure what the next day would bring.
The next morning, the man got up in somewhat better spirits. So, yesterday had been a disaster. The day before had been wonderful! Maybe this third day of judgment would be a good day.
In a short while, the man looked out the window and saw the paper boy pedalling down the street, throwing papers into flowerbeds, bushes and occasionally onto the porches of the people on his route. The man’s lip curled in snide distaste, and he judged the boy to be a goofy looking clutz who couldn’t do anything right. The boy remained unchanged, but immediately the man felt a strange sensation coming over him. His arms and legs suddenly felt awkward, and he stumbled over his shoelaces. His face felt strange too. Staggering over to the mirror, (which took far more effort than it ever had), he was shocked to see that his tongue was lolling uncontrollably out of his mouth, one eye was opened wider than the other, and his nostrils kept twitching. To his horror, he realized that he was goofy looking—what he had judged of the paper boy had come on himself! Try as he might, he could not pull his tongue in his mouth, or stop his nostrils from twitching. He stumbled toward the living room, but tripped and knocked over the hall lamp on his way. Cursing, he staggered to his feet. He had never felt like such a clutz.
For the next half hour he couldn’t do anything right, no matter how hard he tried. He burned the toast, burned his fingers, broke dishes, broke his mirror, and knocked over (and broke) his new flat screen TV.
Finally, the half hour ended, and he was back to his normal horrible self. He was so mad at the fairy he couldn’t see straight. How dare she put the judgments he passed on others (which he was sure were always justified) back on him! That just wasn’t fair! After all, if he judged someone else to be an oaf or an idiot, it was because they deserved it! He, of all people, did not deserve it. All morning long the man grumbled and cursed to himself. He also kept away from all windows, since he knew if he saw someone else and judged them, he’d be the loser.
However, it was hard for him to not look out the windows to see what the neighbors were doing, and to overcome his old habits of judging them, which he loved to do so much. While walking into the kitchen, he happened to glance out the window and see Mrs. McGruder, the neighborhood gossip. Without thinking he judged her to be an old busybody who had to share every tidbit of gossip with everyone she knew. In horror, he then found himself rushing to the phone with an overpowering urge to call everyone he knew and gossip to them. He tried with all his strength to hold himself back, but it was just no use. He called up the Chief Judge (who was not happy to hear from him) and told every tidbit of gossip he knew of in the courthouse. He told how one of their fellow judges would sometimes sneak off during work hours to play golf, and of how the clerks would often throw darts at a picture of the Chief Judge (when he was away from the courthouse, of course).
He then called another judge (who was also not happy to hear from him), and told how the Chief Judge had a secret stash of booze in his office. After that he called the clerks one by one and told them all about which clerks secretly disliked which other clerks, and also which clerks had crushes on the new single judge that just started there last month.
At the end of the half hour when the man finally put the phone down in relief, the entire courthouse was in an uproar. He didn’t know how he could possibly face going back to work the next week. Since he was now more determined than ever to avoid seeing (and judging) someone else out the window, the man rushed through the house pulling all the blinds shut so he couldn’t see out of any of them.
The man brooded and fumed most of the day, calling the fairy every name in the book (under his breath of course, since he knew she was very powerful and might hear him). Then in the late afternoon, an incredible thought occurred to him. If he judged others negatively and immediately experienced the result of his judgment, wouldn’t it also work in reverse? If he were to judge someone in a positive way (which was rather a horrifying thought), wouldn’t that also immediately come true for him?
He instantly knew that he had to try it. But he was also repulsed by the thought. He couldn’t think of anyone he had ever met that deserved a positive judgment. It seemed hypocritical to judge someone favorably when he knew it was a lie. But then he realized that HE deserved positive judgments, even though no one else did. So he decided to judge others positively for himself, not for them.
He went to the window and looked out to see if there was anyone he could judge. At first there was no one, but then he spied his neighbor Charlie Groots. It was only with supreme effort that he suppressed the urge to judge Charlie negatively in half a dozen different ways. It wasn’t easy. Finally, grasping at straws, he said to himself, “Charlie sure smiles a lot.”
Instantly a smile came over his own face. Try as he might, he couldn’t get rid of it. But no matter. Now that he knew how to gain from this third day of the fairy’s gift, he decided to go to the mall where he could find more people to judge (who hopefully would not be as hard to judge in a positive way as Charlie had been).
Once he reached the mall, he took up his regular bench. After a moment, he spotted a man who had appeared in his courtroom as a defendant. Although the judge despised the man and had often thought to himself that he was stupid, today he thought to himself, “There goes an incredibly wise man.”
Instantly, the judge felt little shoots of wisdom popping back and forth in his head. He rather regretted his choice of wisdom as the positive judgment, since he wisely began to realize many of his own weaknesses and prejudices, which wasn’t pleasant. He would be more careful next time.
For the rest of the evening, the man experienced one of the most unusual times of his life. Based on positive judgments of people he saw, he became an opera singer, a brilliant physicist, a statesman as noble as Abe Lincoln, the most handsome man in his town, and a few dozen other amazing things that he had always yearned for and always knew secretly that he deserved.
In addition to all this, however, the man made a startling discovery. After awhile of looking for the good in people, rather than the bad, he began to notice things that he had never seen before. He saw kindness and caring, poise, strength and dignity in others that he never knew was there. It w
as shocking to realize that all the louts and incompetents he saw everywhere also had some good points too.
All too soon, the mall closed and the man had to leave. Rather than go home, he went to an all night café and had a ball judging positive judgments until the fairy’s gift ended at midnight. During his time in the café he became an artist as great as Picasso, the kindest man in the world, a genius greater than Einstein, a computer whizz, and the most astute political analyst ever born. All in all, it was a most pleasant evening. Somehow, looking at people in a positive way (even if he was convinced the positive judgments were all false) was very uplifting and refreshing. It just made him feel good all over, a sensation he had not often felt.
The next morning, the man lay in bed a long time after he woke up, contemplating what had happened over the last three days of judging. He dimly perceived that there was a lesson in it somewhere, but wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to admit it or learn from it. He finally resolved that although there might be some merit to positive judgments, he was still duty bound to judge people in ways that they deserved. The next week when he returned to work, he was back to his old normal self (however, all that day he had constant visits from staff members, wanting to know more gossip). His three day judgment gift from the fairy was all but forgotten, other than a criminal information that he filed against her for improper dispensing of fairy gifts.
MORALS:
1 If everyone instantly became what others judged them to be, only dog owners would do well.
2 If judgments only impacted those who made them, this would be a much more pleasant world.
3 Ignoring other people’s judgments of us may sometimes be the best judgment about ourselves that we can make.
