Telling Time by Law and Order Reruns

Jamie Lynn Harris

If you ask me after the sun sets on any day during winter break what time it is or what day of the week it is or what the date is I couldn't answer you. As soon as 7pm hits I began watching Law and Order reruns on TNT or USA.

The best nights are Friday and Saturday nights. At the beginning of the first episode, I am eating dinner. I know that by the end of the third episode I should be heading out the door to go out for the night. Sometimes my mother misses me when I am out all night but if we watch those three episodes of Law and Order, she doesn't feel so bad. Those days, our relationship is based on a mutual appreciation for Law and Order. If Law and Order SVU is on we get to discuss youth culture and sexual politics; I've learned a lot about where my mother stands politically through watching Law and Order.

Time disappears while watching Law and Order in two ways: 'real time', the time that I live in, disappears as well as the chronology of the over arching Law and Order plot disappears because I watch the reruns. I never understood why networks never air reruns in their original order.

I sort of know where Dae Su is coming from: "Television becomes [his] clock, calendar, friend, lover". Law and Order for now is only my clock.