The Maury Show and the Woman With a Phobia of Pickles

I'll admit it, I'm not a fan of Maury Povich or at least, I should say, of his show. I stopped watching somewhere between, "My Baby's Mama" and "My Hubby Is Sleeping With My Mother." But something happened on the Maury show earlier this year that made me feel great about myself...I'm not really a self-inflicting drama-queen as I once thought.

Earlier this year an episode aired on the Maury show, where a woman came to Maury begging for help with a strange, but (characteristically speaking) not unheard of phobia. Pickles. That's right . . . pickles. It may sound odd, but I certainly was not willing to mumble uncaring remarks at what I had figured was going to be a poor tortured soul who was being real about an irrational, debilitating fear. In essence, my sympathy meter was going up. That was until a few moments later all hell and forms of reality had broken loose.

Before I continue (in case I began to receive massive hate mail) I will admit something to you that very few people know. I am afraid . . . of boxes. That's right. Not just any kind of box, but the little clear plastic kind that holds these little square disk things in them.

Sounds pretty drastic doesn't it? Pretty stupid? Pretty freaky? Dumb? Retarded? Made up? Yea, that's what I thought too when this eighteen year old woman began flailing her arms around the Maury show audience while screaming at the top of her lungs when a show assistant came trotting out with a plate full of pickles. Don't get me wrong, I believe that there is a possibility someone could really have a phobia of pickles. The texture can be a little unsettling when you think about it. That leathery, sometimes slimy, feel. And for that reason, I had initially believed it was something tangible about her fear. But the display I witnessed on this particular episode was unreal.

I have no doubt in my mind that the show, whether it was to the knowledge of Maury Povich or not, hired this woman to act like a complete moron on national television.

The episode first started out with a woman afraid of mustard, then another of birds. I didn't happen to see the mustard lady, but from my understanding it was an amusing bit. But I would think that no one, except for the Maury producers, knew how freaky the episode was fixing to turn.

The pickle woman held herself together during Maury's introduction for about all of five seconds, and then the tears began. Crying. Shaking. Weeping. Sniffing. From that point on I was waiting for the show to pop off with a little flashing banner that read "FAKE" across the screen. They might as well have programmed it in because the stupidity, if not nothing more than erroneous entertainment, of the show truly began when Maury reveals that the woman is going to be sent to a pickle factory to "face her fears." Of course, the woman begins to cry uncontrollably. In fact, she did this all the way to the pickle factory in what I like to call "The Maury Povich Intervention mobile." Once she arrived, she was pushing, shoving, crying, and screaming to leave. The therapist didn't do much to console her, except half way drag the woman into the pickle warehouse before the woman decided to just fall on the floor with her hands over her ears, while half talking to herself . . . and the pickles.

After an eventful trip to the pickle factory, the woman was faced with snickers and ominous laughter after the warehouse video. But nothing compared to the therapist's reaction when a tray full of pickles were brought out to the woman when the factory debacle didn't go over too smoothly. The therapist was overcome with the woman's debilitating phobia. So much so, she had begun to snicker (eventually muffled, hand over the mouth laughter) as the woman jumped off the stage and began running around the entire Maury studio (including backstage).

The scene was disturbing to say the least. When I finally changed the channel, I got up from my sofa feeling disturbed, amused, and hungry . . . for a pickle.

*Author's note: I am in no way afraid of little clear plastic boxes. However... I may be afraid of pickles.