Dropping the Soap (Operas)

Most kids my age grew up watching shows like Captain Planet or Power Rangers. I grew up watching Days of Our Lives.

It wasn’t by choice. Frankly, when I was a kid I liked watching commercials. It wasn’t until I was in the second grade that I realized you flipped the channels to find a television program, not to find an ad to become a medical student in just six months.

But no mater what I was watching, my nana would hijack the TV everyday at precisely 12:59 so she could watch her “story.” I’m not sure Days of Our Lives was an appropriate program for a child, but I grew up watching it on nana’s couch anyway.

My mother followed suit as a Days of Our Lives fan, although she’s at work when the program airs. She gets her fill when she’s on vacation, and sometimes she has to call nana to find out why so and so is pregnant with a married man’s seed, or plotting a kidnapping, or hiding in a cave.

My Aunt Rhonda went astray; she watched Passions before it was cancelled years ago. My cousin Jonathan would tell me about the evil midgets and puppets from him mom’s show, and most of the time I thought he was making it up.

Then there’s me, the third generation. Although Nana gave me a proper Soap Opera induction, I don’t spend my days off catching up on Days of Our Lives drama.

Apparently a lot of other people aren’t either because TV stations are dropping the soaps: Guiding light was cancelled in 2009 and As the World Turns aired its final episode last week.

But while Soap Operas are going down the drain, reality television shows are popping up like zits on a teenager. I can’t tear myself away from excellent programming like Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Like Soap Operas, the cornerstone of these shows is sex, but in this genre it’s “real.” If you see Snookie and the Situation hooking up in the hot tub, it’s more exciting than a General Hospital love scenes because it actually happened. And if the dialogue is bad, or the scenario is unlikely, it’s because the cast members are usually dumb, desperate, and drunk, which makes the show even better.

Who needs to watch Days of Our Lives when real people’s lives are on TV, complete with the same far fetched, overly dramatic, sexed up plots that were once only portrayed by Soap Opera characters?

Six Flags: More Flags, Less Fun

My fiancé and I spent $197 on an overnight trip to Six Flags. In addition to making it on three rides (two water rides and one roller coaster) we were able to enjoy some activities they don’t advertise online.

If you visit the park, make sure you don’t miss:

• Viewing thousands of heart, skull, and flower tattoos. Hopefully you’ll get to see my favorite; a Lilly blooming out of a woman’s cleavage.
  
  
• Playing the “I’m Not Looking At You” game. While you’re waiting in line for a water ride, you’ll have nothing else do but scrutinize the unkempt body hair and flaking skin rashes on the people around you. But don’t let them catch you, or you’ll lose the game!
  
  
• Waiting out a severe thunder and lightening storm at a picnic table without an umbrella. Who needs to wait in line for the Geronimo now?
  
  
• Scoring free entertainment while waiting 120 minutes for the Batman Roller Coaster in the form of a disgruntled freckle faced boy. Standing directly in front of us, we had a great view of him hitting his sister, calling his father a dummy, and yelling, “Let me be!” while covering his ears. He even included us in the show after his sister blocked one of his punches, and the boy turned to us and said, “I bet these people behind us saw you hit me.”
  
  
• Paying $34 for sodas and Two Tyson chicken finger plates. At least it was brand name poultry.
  
  
• Witnessing the artistic ice cream server who was still learning how to apply sprinkles to ice cream cones. After toppling three deserts into the bin of sprinkles, our server scooped up the sprinkles with her hand and threw them onto the soft serve, much like an artist throwing paint onto her canvas. Hopefully she doesn’t master the traditional sprinkle application method before you get a chance to purchase her frozen art.

If this sounds exciting to you and you’d like a similar experience without the drive time, I suggest spending the day at your local Registry of Motor Vehicles. You’ll wait in the same lines, spend the same money, and get the same amount of flags: 0.5.

Technology Fart

There’s a very special moment in a romantic relationship--a passing moment when you go from being a fresh couple, to one that is a bit more seasoned, in seconds.

It happens when one member of the relationship farts, and then everything changes. You can’t go back to pre-fart. You know that you will be subjected to this person farting for the duration of your relationship.

“The first fart” used to be a biological phenomenon, but now there’s a new technological equivalent to passing wind in front of your new girlfriend.

I was subjected to this while getting a drink with a guy I had been dating for about a month. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his iphone, and said, “Let’s see what’s going on on Facebook.“

My jaw dropped. This was a guy who very rarely made calls or texted anyone while we were together, and now he was Facebooking during our date? He may as well have just let one rip because it had the same effect on our relationship as an SBD.

Just like farting, his Facebooking was a turning point that could only mean one of two things:

1) He felt so comfortable around me that he let it slip.

or

2) He didn’t care about being polite anymore because he wasn't into me. In fact, our date was so uninteresting that he needed to supplement it by reading other people’s status updates.

My final assessment is that it was number two. After all, we wound up breaking up the following weekend (see plunger story below).

So the next time you’re out you should do more than just avoid the beans-- keep your iphone in your pocket--farting and Facebooking are two ways to stink up a hot date.

Taking the Plunge-r

What's the one thing you would never want to rush out and buy with your new boyfriend?

A plunger.

I promise. Especially when you're spending the weekend with his friends and the guy that was in the bathroom before you said he pooped at Wal-Mart.

That's how I got stuck with the blame of clogging the only toilet in their apartment-- but I swear I didn't do it.

When I went in the bathroom that morning I noticed some signs that the toilet might be on the fritz: there wasn't much water in the bowl and clumps of someone elses toilet paper was sticking to the sides. Eww.

Even though I was kind of leary about the toilet, I didn't have much of a choice. I could either find an excuse to run out of the house and hunt down a public bathroom or use this one that may or may not be functioning properly.

I should have found that Wal-Mart...

I flushed and froze. The water level was getting dangerously close to the rim of the bowl! "Oh shit, oh no, oh shit" I thought to myself. Should I shut off the water? Should I look for a cup and start bailing it out? Before I had to take action, the water started to disappear back into the bowl. Whew.

I thought that was the end of it, until my boyfriend and I came back hours later. He went to the bathroom and spent such a long time in there that I checked on him. I found him sitting on the ledge of the bathtub with one hand on the handle of the flusher. He looked up at me and said the toilet was clogged.

I tried to play it cool, after all, it wasn't actually me that clogged it in the first place. So I offered suggestions to fix the situation:

Maybe it's not really clogged?

No.

Maybe we could borrow a plunger from the neighbors?

No.

Then I got creative. I suggested he cover his hands with two plastic bags and stick them into the toilet to yank out the clog.

Absolutely not. (But he did invite me to try that one myself.)

That's when I broke down and told him that, although I didn't clog the toilet, I may have compounded the issue. I felt so bad that I suggested we buy a plunger. He pointed out that his friends lived in that apartment for a year and never needed one before. And so we got in my car, sped to Lowes, and got a big black plunger that could double as a wiffle ball bat.

I was the sucker that had to pay for the plunger, but he was the one that used it. I should have taken the thing home as a parting gift because the clog wasn't the only thing that went down the toilet. Our relationship also went down the pipes-- we broke up the next morning.

What your Dog will Really do with the Potty Patch

Small dogs are notorious for peeing in the house and my mother has three of them. That is what prompted her to buy The Potty Patch, an indoor doggie Port-a-Potty. It looks like a plastic boot tray with a piece of AstroTurf on top, but at first glance you'd probably think it was a mobile golf tee instead of a dog bathroom.

The infomercial claims your dog will mistake the plastic Potty-Patch for your front lawn and urinate on it instead of your carpet. (The commercial doesn't mention anything about poop).

But my mother's dogs must be pretty smart, or really stupid. Even though the patch feels like uncomfortable spiky needles, her dog Max thought it was a new dog bed instead of a new toilet. She would come home and find him stretched out and napping on the fake grass. When he wandered away her other dog Molly would run up, munch on the patch, and then vomit on the floor.

My poor mother thought this would be the best $39.99 plus shipping and handling that she ever spent. But now not only did she still have dogs peeing on the legs of her chairs, she also had plastic grass and dog puke to clean up.

After a few weeks she got frustrated and threw The Potty Patch on the front porch right under the mail box (I'm glad the mailman never used it.) And tonight we found an actual purpose for it-- traction.

You see, this evening my mother accidentally lodged her car into a snowbank on the side of the driveway and we jammed The Potty Patch between the ice and her tires to create traction to move the car. I guess it wasn't a wasted investment after all.

Macys Gets a Black Mark on Black Friday

This year I didn’t wake up at 5 am to shop, I didn’t wait in outrageously long lines, and I didn’t get run over in the parking lot (although I came uncomfortably close to a speeding pickup truck). I wasn’t even going to go shopping, but I took one of my mom’s $10 off Macy’s coupons and I felt obligated to use it.


I made it to the store at 11 am and selected two sweaters that I wanted to purchase, buy one get one free. I went to a special make-shift register that was set up for the holiday rush (no line by the way) and I noticed my sweaters rang up as $19 each. But when I bought one and “got one free”, one of them magically jumped to $32.


“Excuse me, if they rang up as $19 each and it’s by one get one free, shouldn’t the total be $19” I asked.


What followed is the signature most annoying thing a sales person could possibly do but always does—explain to you why you are wrong. After she made her spiel about store policy I turned and noticed a line was forming behind me. Hopeful I’d still get a good deal, I forked over my $10 coupon.


“I’m sorry, you can’t use this coupon on morning specials” she told me.

That’s why I went this store, to use my $10 coupon. And now I can’t. I was a good customer; they lured me in early in the morning like all the other crazies. And now they aren’t going to give me my $10 off??


As the line grew longer and noisier I became more annoyed and sweaty. I’d like to say that I stalked away, pride and money in tow, and let Macy’s lose a holiday sale.


But that’s not what happened. I was caught up in a consumer shopping craze which some of us like to call holiday cheer. I wound up buying one of the sweaters, which I think is just ok, for a price that I could find cheaper at Marshalls.

Congratulations! You’re a not-so-instant loser

My Honey Bunches of Oats cereal wants to send me on a 3 night vacation to Punta Cana. That is, if I open the box, log onto their web page, register, and see if my code makes me the lucky winner.


For the first time, I did all that work just to get the expected, “SORRY you didn’t win.” But lucky me, I did get a coupon for the next time I happen to be in the Caribbean and want to stay at Dreams Resorts & Spas.

Remember when you were a kid and could get rejected on the spot? You’d wake up, dump the entire box of Fruit Loops onto the kitchen table and get yelled at by mom for wasting food. Then your little kid heart would sink when you sounded out that you’re not the winner of the Mustang, the million dollars, or the trip to see Mickey Mouse. But at least you didn’t have to give your personal information to General Mills.

Now that it takes actual effort (and an invasion of your privacy) to find out that you’re a loser, I bet most people toss their cereal boxes without checking to see if they’ve won. And that’s a great money saver for the cereal companies—they won’t have to deliver on the vacations they promise on their boxes.

For all we know, that hotel room to Punta Cana might stay vacant.