My mom ran a lid sorting machine at Campbell Soup in Sacramento for about 13 years, and she worked a lot of overtime during the tomato season. Everyone at the cannery worked overtime when tomatoes were harvested full force, and I could imagine all of these people walking around like zombies from lack of sleep.
There were also periods of unemployment, and that was the nature of the beast. During the slow months, when my mom was home, the TV was on, playing back-to-back soap operas. But in my family, we watched the soap operas in big blocks. We didn’t stick to watching just one show. I grew up watching soap operas, and they came and went.
No one will really admit to watching soap operas. I’ve had women at work calling them, “my stories”. But to me, that’s what they were—televised stories in a serial form. Depending on the soap and its writers, you usually got a story which kept your attention anywhere from half an hour to an hour. To me, if the writing was good, the soap would carry your interest from day to day, week to week and year to year.
When it comes to retirement, the television can become your worst enemy. If you don’t have anything planned to do when you retire, you can easily grow old in front of the television. The television programs provide the American public with a great distraction. At the same time, we all know what a great baby-sitting service it can provide for kids and people of all ages. In retirement, it can turn into an addiction or an obsession.
“Gotta run home and catch my soap.”
Not anymore. You can tape it and watch your favorite television show anytime you like. To me, I like watching my favorite soap around midnight, when the house is quiet and everyone is asleep. All is well in the world while I watch my soap and rip my newest knitting project.
Soap operas are packed with stereotypes and all kinds episodes based on modern day problems. Soap opera characters would be a gold mine for therapists, psychologists and shrinks. All of these soap opera characters are co-dependents, enablers, passive-aggressive personalities, and much, much more. They tend to get into other peoples’ business. They “fix” and “rescue”. And, they never learn from their mistakes. If they do learn from their mistakes, then other characters pick up the ball and repeat the same mistakes. How many times has a character suffered from amnesia or ran away to another town? How many times the same couple has broke up, had multiple spouses, but got back together because they were really meant for each other?
Problems? Yes, people on soap operas have all kinds of problems. In fact, you feel so much better when you watch them struggling. Sometimes, it takes plenty of episodes for them to figure what they’re going to do in order to solve their problems. But the audience has all the answers and will coach the characters from the privacy of our own homes.
“Dump him!”
“She’s a cheat, so let her go!”
“Divorce him! He was never good enough for you.”
My husband used to watch soap operas when he was a kid. While staying at his grandma’s, she had her favorite soaps. Although more and more soaps are being taken off the air, he understands why I still watch soaps. He claims you don’t have to be an avid viewer to understand what’s going on.
Once a month, he’ll say something like, “Wasn’t she going to prison for killing her husband’s ex-wife by letting her fall into the volcano in Maui?”
“No, Silly. She has now going to prison for killing his ex-wife, but we all know she didn’t do it because her husband threw the evidence into the same running water where her first ex-husband and their son just threw the ashes of the woman who hi-jacked her car from her when she had run away to New Mexico. Those ashes weren’t hers. The woman who stole her car crashed it and burned to death. She was wearing her stolen engagement ring at the time, so everyone back home in Wisconsin thought that the woman who didn’t kill the woman in Maui was dead from the crash.”
“Oooooookay.” This is his cue to zone out, turn on his laptop and get with His People on the Internet. When I say, His People, I mean his group of Internet people on his Facebook game who build cities, then rob and pillage other alliances within the game. When Jack is with His People, I leave him alone.
Since I am in my 50s and don’t plan on doing anything other than staying married, I do like to watch attractive people on television and the movies. On HD, everyone has perfect skin or immaculate makeup. On soaps, everyone is fashionably dressed. I like to see what the women are wearing. I like to see the jewelry around their wrists and necks. I like to see someone else walking around in high heels while I comfortably walk around in flats.
In June, I started writing my own version of a soap opera for Hubpages.com called Two Rivers Rising, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I like writing about travel, so I throw in photographs of places in and around Sacramento. This gives me an excuse to visit the tourist attractions. You know how it is. You can live in the same place for years and don’t explore. It is sad to learn that tourists from as far away as Europe or Japan know more about California and the rest of the United States than you do.
Years ago, I was a plaintiff in a lawsuit. About a year later, I hired another attorney to represent me in my divorce.
I am allergic to attorneys and lawsuits. Can you blame me? I know what it’s like to hand over a chunk of money each month to pay an attorney until the case is settled.
So, with this soap, I am practicing the twists and turns of writing about me and my experiences with retirement. At the same time, I am doling out pseudonyms and switching things around so that you may not recognize yourself in my writing. Whether you like it or not, the people I have kept around me inspire me. Whether it’s their actions, their stories or their words, I get ideas all of the time. Some of them slip away because I don’t have my writer’s journal handy.
Anyway, if you see anything familiar in my soap, don’t take it personal. I am having a lot of fun writing my version of a soap, and if you wish, I welcome you to write about me if you feel like getting even. But in the process of writing this way, I sometimes blend fact with fiction. But when it comes down to it, my soap is based on real people and true situations, and it’s a game to hide real names and hardcore facts.
Also, I’m afraid of getting sued.
ArleneVPoma.hubpages.com
ArleneVPoma.hubpages.com
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