By Staff
Leada DeVaney, Editor
About three years ago, my dad came across an old televison set in his basement. Inspite of its 1970s appearance, it worked well and even had a remote control. He offered it to me and I ended up bringing it to the office and placing it in the conference room.
The television would remain at the office only if one rule was abided by: except for lunch time, it was to remain on an all-news program. This rule was instituted to avoid eight hours of Jerry Springer watching and so that we could keep up with world events, weather, etc.
My mistake, of course, was putting in the "lunch" loophole. It didn't occur to me that people would gather to watch that most dreadful of daily shows – the soap opera. And lately, it seems to have gotten worse.
Several people in the office have gotten addicted to a story line on "Days of Our Lives." From what I can piece together, the storyline involves a serial killer who is murdering all the people on the soap opera. Every day, I hear squeals of laughter from the Soap Opera Gang as they eat lunch and catch the show.
Every once and a while, I hear a snippet of their conversations and I'm starting to wonder if it might be better if they were watching Jerry Springer.
"Hurry! They are showing So-and-So with his shirt off."
"The serial killer has left another note. Whats-his-name is going to get it for sure if he goes on that camping trip with Alexis."
"We've all got to be here Wednesday. They are going to reveal who the serial killer is. Party!"
I knew things had gone a bit too far when I heard these words coming from one of the members of the Soap Opera Gang.
"I thought it was stupid when they were on the highwire and that girl fainted and he had to carry her across on his shoulders. Like everybody in the town decided to be in a carnival at the same time. And like he'd ever walked on a tightrope before."
What? A tightrope? A carnival? I thought this show was about a serial killer, not Ringling Brothers. And don't these shows have to be at least a little bit believable? What's next? A giant ice storm that freezes the whole town inside an igloo and they have to limbo their way out? A scene where the entire cast breaks out singing and dancing on the wings of an airplane?
You have to be careful about what you say around the Soap Opera Gang. Sure, they will laugh at some of these things (like the tightrope scene) but in the end, they take it pretty seriously. One is not allowed to poke fun at the soap opera.
But apparently, soap opera logic does not have to include any logic at all.