Soap Operas

If the author of my life were going to choose to change the script and write my life into a soap opera a lot of exciting events would need to be constantly happening. Not necessarily good things or sane things but... interesting things. Because that is what a soap opera is, right? A woman is infertile and adopts a child with her husband only to become mysteriously pregnant and the husband is ecstatic but it's not his child and as it turns out it's not hers either. The child belongs, in fact, to the evil step-mother and some character that has never been introduced before and may never be depending on how long the writers feel like going off on this course. Except then you find out that the child is actually an alien except they squabble too much over how the alien baby should look and end up just having the woman miscarriage anyway. And then the adopted baby (in case you forgot about him) gets kidnapped and they have to find him- until some day, years from now and millions of plot-twists hence, the show is canceled and nothing is resolved but everything is, at least, laid to rest.

The script of my life wasn't a lot like a soap opera before, though so the author might decide to ease into it. They'd go for- oh, I dunno- maybe my roommate goes crazy and kicks me out of my house. The author then plans to uproot me to a totally different place but gets cold feet and decides that one major event is enough for right now and decides I can stay where I am while they see how the reverberations and consequences rattle through my life, ricocheting off this and that. They had to see how things would settle and work out before they decided on continuing in that genre.

Then say things turn out satisfactorily to whatever plan the author has and they decide to proceed with their plan to turn the script into a soap opera. Then things really start to happen. My roommate calls me when I'm over at my brother's apartment and his voice sounds all funny and he says that his brother broke up with his girlfriend and even though they were living hippie-style in a big house with a bunch of other people he doesn't want to stay there. And so would it be all right for him to crash on our couch for a while? I said yes. My roommate's brother is pretty okay and not only did he offer to pay but he has a job where he goes and works seventy-two hours straight so some nights he will not even be at our apartment. So the next day my roommate's brother moves into our apartment, something which I'm not sure is strictly legal but it happens anyway.

So to add to that new upheaval in my life the very next day after my roommate's brother moves in my roommate is conditionally fired. Essentially he's gotten so many strikes from his employer which means they can fire him but at least one of the strikes is bullshit so if he could get the decision overturned he wouldn't be fired. But if he doesn't get that overturned- well, things could be kind of awful for a while. Considering that he pays half the rent and utilities and I don't make enough money for all that and food. The next day I was talking to my friend and he said that he had a job interview. I said that that was good and didn't realize the catch that was coming next. My friend specifically mentioned this because if he was hired he wanted to know if he could stay at our apartment for two weeks because if he stays at college during vacation he has to pay for it. My response was along the lines of: "Well, ordinarily that would not be a problem but if you wanted to do that you'd have to cuddle with my roommate's brother because he's already staying here." And the next day my roommate goes and fills out forms for unemployment and food stamps. And the day after that he announces that he will likely have his job back on monday.

And the day after that- well- that's today. So far nothing of note has happened but it's only nine-thirty in the morning and I've not yet been awake for two hours. I can only imagine, though, that next up there will be some unexplained pregnancies, maybe some kidnappings, a little sexual turmoil. You know, the usual fare for a soap opera. I can't wait.