I used to be, but I gave them up when my boys were toddlers and they starting expressing concern about Nikki and Jack on The Young and the Restless. It wasn't easy to give up my very favorite soap though since my mom, grandparents, and mother in law were also addicted to As The World Turns. And they talked about it!
It seems like a colossal waste of time now, but I cut everyone a lot of slack for this habit because I think for all of us it was just a chance to sit down and rest for 30 minutes after a busy morning and before a busy afternoon ahead.
Sometimes my "logic" isn't very logical. Taking a short nap or sitting down with a good book seemed "lazy", but it was ok to watch a show that glorified adultery, money, alcohol, and even smoking cigarettes nonstop. My cousins and I used to practice smoking with crayon "cigarettes" when we played house and I blame the Hughes family. I'm very thankful I didn't like the real thing, so that is one bad habit I didn't have to break.
On Memorial Day, I had Chris and Nancy and Bob and Lisa Hughes on my mind. Those people knew how to celebrate a holiday. I remember the family dressed to the hilt on the patio gathered around the flagpole after a fabulous boozy picnic. They made messy lives look so good! I decided when I was in high school that was the life for me.
Minus the adultery, alcoholism, and other vices, of course.
I had very definite ideas what my adult life was going to look like. I WAS NOT going to marry a farmer. I was going to marry someone with a 9-5 job, live in a nice suburb or city and celebrate holidays like my soap opera role models.
Fast forward 37 years, and here we are.
I did marry a farmer, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My dreams of picnics dressed in designer clothes seem ridiculous now.
We spend most Memorial Days, 4th of July's, and Labor Days working our tails off. But we are not alone. When I made a trip to the John Deere store after parts on Monday, the counter was fully staffed. When I stopped at the welder's house to pick up the repairs, he was hard at it. When I needed supplies to feed everyone, the checkout girls were polite and smiling. And when a tire on one of the implements busted, the people at the tire store stayed open late while I drove 20 minutes for them to fix it.
I'll leave the soap opera characters to the life I imagined, and I'll join my friends and neighbors and get to work. We have a hungry world to feed.
