You know what’s weird? The Casey Anthony trial is a case that has apparently transfixed America for three years. You know when I first heard about it? Two or three weeks ago. And that’s only because I decided to record The Today Show a few weeks ago so I could watch Meredith Vieira’s last episode and Ann Curry’s first episode as host. (I’ve long been interested in The Today Show as an institution even though I don’t watch it regularly anymore.) They did a report on “the Casey Anthony trial” and I had no idea what they were talking about. I figured it was another one of those sensationalistic “missing white girl” stories that I have no interest in. I barely gave it a further moment’s thought until the verdict was announced yesterday. I was working from home, and I saw online that she’d just been found not guilty. I went to the TV, where the previous half hour of MSNBC was in the TiVo buffer, and I rewound it and watched the announcement of the verdict.

I’m baffled as to how I’d heard so little about this case. I guess it’s because most of the news I follow is from politics websites and the New York Times, and if there was any coverage of it in the Times until yesterday, I missed it. We also watch NBC Nightly News almost every night, but Brian Williams has barely covered it there.

After watching the verdict, I went to Wikipedia to read up on the history and details of the case, so I’ve caught up a bit.

Again, it’s weird, because when all the O.J. stuff was going on in the ’90s, I generally knew what was going on, even if I still didn’t really obsess over it or anything. But this case? I hadn’t even realized it existed.

I’m not disappointed that I missed most of this. On the contrary. But I’m still just… baffled that I did.