Paging Dr. Evans, Dr. Marlena Evans...

I have always taken for granted that I wouldn't actually live to see something that was a predominate part of my youth go into what can only be described as extinction.  After all, I am only forty and in the big scheme of things I have not been around that long.  However, I find that there is something that I grew up with, something that helped me be the person I am today that the youth of tomorrow will not have. 

I am of course talking about the soap opera.

You can't tell me that people would rather Keep Up With the Kartrashians then watch a good old fashioned soap opera that is far more believable then their lives are.  When I was younger my days were filled.  I started them in Salem, quickly jumped to Bay City and finished the day out in Santa Barbara.  Looking back, no wonder I was fat.  Once my ass was planted on that sofa to the familiar beginning of Days Of Our Lives I wasn't about to get up until the final credits of Santa Barbara rolled.  I don't care what was happening.  They are now being replaced with all these round table type talk shows that I have a hard time following.  I am listening to "The View",or am I viewing "The Talk"?  Why do I care that Regis has left Kelly and why in the name of everything holy is that douche Dr. Phil still on the air?

With a soap opera you don't get all the run around that you get with other broadcast television and I like that.  I the land of soaps you can count that if someone is pregnant her husband is not the father.  If a couple that loves each other more then the very air they breathe get engaged, a marriage is not going to happen.  If someone dies they are going to come back about a year later after extensive contract re-negotiation.  An explosion has been known to change someones hair color, eye color, height, weight, and even nationality. Oh and finally, you can rest assured that whatever the plot line calls for Dr. Marlena Evans will end up kidnapped or with amnesia, or both.

Long suffering Marlena has seen the death of her twin sister (who had kidnapped her), countless kidnappings, amnesia more times then anyone can count, possession from the devil, she was surrogate when she was in a coma, She has been in multiple plane crashes, fires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.  She has been buried alive, endured the kidnapping of her children and even once thought she was a serial killer, all the while remaining the top psychiatrist on staff of Salem University Hospital....she is also one of my heroes.

See, I think a good old fashioned soap opera (not to be confused with a bona fide drama) gives you the break from reality that you often need to make it through life.  Work sucks?  Hey, your not pregnant with your half alien brother in laws child that you conceived on a space ship in Heaven.  They are little glimpses into the lives that NO ONE (not even those Kartrashians) could even dream of having, and that is what makes them wonderful.  So give me Dr. Evans over Dr. Oz any day.  She may not be real, but sometimes the break from reality she prescribes is just what the doctor ordered.