If you wrote it as a comedy sketch, you might win an Emmy.

In a Zoom call hearing from the 33rd District Court last week, the judge, Hon. Michael K. McNally, is about to enter a default judgment against the defendant, a woman named Kimberly Carroll, because she’s not showing up on the screen.

Suddenly, her voice sounds. She claims to have been in an internet “waiting room” and didn’t know what to do. Then her face appears – with a seat belt across her chest and a car window beside her.

“You cannot be driving, ma’am,” the judge says.

“I’m not driving,” Carroll insists. “I’m a passenger in a car.”

“I’m not hearing cases with people driving or as passengers in cars,” the judge retorts.

“OK, I will pull over right now. … I’m sorry, I have an emergency … but I will have my driver pull over, hang on one second.”

Meanwhile, the judge is studying her image.

“Am I crazy,” he says, “or does it not look like you’re driving the car?”

“I’m not driving the car,” she insists. “I’m a passenger in the car, sir.”

“What side of the car are you on?” he asks.

“I’m on the left-hand side.”

“How would you be on the left-hand side if you’re a passenger in the front seat? Am I missing something?”

“Right-hand side,” she quickly says.

Seeing is believing

By this point, it seems so obvious that you expect the woman to fess up. But she maintains her story.

“The seat belt is coming off the driver’s side,” the judge notes. “Now you’re lying to me, right?”

“No, I’m not, sir.”

“Let me see the driver.”

The woman freezes, perhaps realizing this whole thing is visual, not audio.

“Let me see the driver,” the judge repeats.

“Hang on one second,” she says. “I have to ask their permission.”

“Now!”

She then appears to get out of the car – on the driver’s side.

The judge has had enough. He enters a default against her, tells her she lied to him, and says, “Have a great day. Thank you.”

You can’t make this up.

Naturally, the video has gone viral. Been viewed tens of thousands of times already. It was covered by local news in Michigan and even became a segment on Fox News’ “Gutfeld” program, one of late night’s most-watched TV shows.

Now, I do feel sorry for Carroll, who later posted an apology admitting she made a mistake, but also questioned why “a brief moment of poor judgment has turned into a viral spectacle that is affecting my reputation.”

Fair question. Here’s the answer:

Because you were on a screen.

Always watching …

Americans today should assume that anything they do is being recorded. There are cameras on street corners. Cameras in restaurants. Cameras in courtrooms. Cameras in every kind of cellphone, which means if anyone is around, that moment of your life might be filmed.

When you appear on a Zoom call, you are making a digital impression – one that may never go away. And asking people to be responsible with Zoom footage, or to respect the privacy of the participants, has become, sadly, like expecting a squirrel to give back the nut.

Ask Jeffrey Toobin, the CNN legal analyst, who saw his reputation trashed after he apparently didn’t realize his Zoom camera was on while he was – how to put this? – pleasuring himself in his home. Maybe he expected the participants to realize his terrible embarrassment and destroy the footage.

Not a chance. The video went viral. So have countless others: School board meetings. Celebrity temper tantrums. Professors in classrooms. People on airplanes.

We have become a nation of voyeurs with an insatiable appetite for the embarrassing, the humiliating and the reputation-destroying.

Missing the truth

But the 33rd District Court video teaches us something else: how far people will bend the truth if they think they can get away with it.

I empathize with the embarrassment Carroll has suffered, but the brazen way in which she lied multiple times (and remember, this was to a judge) also speaks to how far we have drifted from an obligation to tell the truth if we think technology can cover us.

Zoom conversations, grossly popularized during the COVID-19 era, invite deception that never existed in face-to-face encounters. You can set a screen background and tell everyone you’re working when you’re actually on the beach. You can nod and stare at the screen as if you’re listening while perusing websites or shopping online.

Meanwhile, the depersonalization of the internet has slackened all rules of decorum. “Comments” sections are vile because you don’t have to identify yourself. Nasty videos get “liked” without consequence. It’s a world where everyone can participate, but few have to take responsibility.

Combine that with the quick uploading of anything embarrassing, and every one of us is just a single bad moment from going down in flames.

The financial judgment against Carroll came to less than $2,000. The price she paid for thinking technology would shield her was considerably more. It was funny to viewers. But when you consider what it says about our world today, maybe it’s not as funny as we think.

• Mitch Albom writes for the Detroit Free Press. His column is distributed by Tribune Content Agency.