I was addicted to a soap opera once. It was back in the eighties, and I had just been RIF’d from my teaching job. I had a new baby, a two-year-old, and a 12-inch black-and-white tv on a little gold stand in the living room of our tiny house. Out in the front yard was a tower antenna with most of the spikes missing, and on top of the little tv was a box with a dial, that didn’t work. This was mostly because A. it was all just too old, and B. most of the antenna spikes were missing, and C. the tower antenna had been ‘modified;’ ie, all the insulated wires had been pecked through by the woodpeckers who didn’t know the difference between a steel tower antenna and a tree. (Their bang-bang-clanging on the metal tower 24/7 was really annoying, but what could we do about it? They were up too high to throw things at, and they did not respond to bribes nor threats.) (I’d tell you what my tiny toddlers called those birds, a few years later, but it’s hardly politically correct, and no, they did not learn it from me.) (although, what I called those birds wasn’t PC, either.)

Anyway, this little tv got two stations: PBS and Days of Our Lives.

So, after Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and the Electric Company (which was THE GREATEST!!!!!) (“What about Naomi?”) (the baby was really too little but I wasn’t.) Belle and Zappa and I would play a little, they would sleep a VERY little, I would do a little housework, I would feed them a little, we would play a little more, and finally, FINALLY, it would be my turn. Days of Our Lives. Like sands through the hourglass. Liz and Neil. Doug and Julie. (Doug and Julie’s mom were before my time.) Doug and Lee. Doug and Julie again. Neil and Marie. Liz and Tony. Tony and Anna. Tony and Liz. Anna and some thugs who put scars on her back but Tony never seemed to notice even when he was in the bathtub with her. Hope, who grew to adulthood in about three months. Etc.

I was so addicted, that when I was called back to work that next school year, I panicked. How would I know what was happening with my soap?

So I subscribed to Soap Opera Digest.

When the first one came in the mail, I was horrified for two reasons: A. all it contained was old stuff that I’d already SEEN, for crying out loud, and B. I had subscribed to SOAP OPERA DIGEST.

What had happened to me?

So I let it run out and never subscribed again, not even when the Soap Opera Digest hit-squad started phoning me and sending me letters promising freebies if I’d come back to the cult world of Soap Opera Addiction.

But I never did. I never even think about it now.

The end.

P.S. Until my friend Scott started blogging about how ANNA is back on Days, and now I’m remembering how cool it used to be before all the soap stars were sixteen years old and possessed by the devil.

P.P.S. I’m not going to start watching, though. I am going to use Scott as my informer.

P.P.P.S. Thanks, hon.