This soap won't get you clean

Do you remember back in the 80s--if you can remember that far back, GOOD FOR YOU!, and if you can't, well, just humor me--and somewhere in every Young Women's lesson manual was the counsel to avoid soap operas (daytime dramas these days, although it seems to me like an awful lot of anytime dramas are soap-opera-ish)? The teachers would bear solemn witness that soap operas stole days from their lives, set them a bad example for decision-making, and led unsuspecting females down the path to immorality. Remember that? I was secretly fascinated with the things after every one of those lessons. (So much for the voice of warning.) And, micro-rebel that I was, every summer I would attempt to cultivate the soap opera habit.

It never worked, of course. Poor acting, unfathomable "plots", rotten dialogue, impenetrable relationships--who had the energy? Besides, my mom had a fool-proof plan for foiling would-be soaper-in-training: chores. That's right, housework kept me on the straight and narrow. (It also gave me dishpan hands at the tender age of twelve, but grouse I shall not.)

If any of you had a mom who was less chore-oriented than mine, or if you were better at inserting earphone plugs than I was, you may remember the opening voice-over to Days of Our Lives, and wouldn't have to look it up on Google like I did: "Like sands through an hourglass, these are the days of our lives. . . ." [cue cheesy music] Okay--I have a problem with that statement. Sands through an hourglass make it seem like there is an order, a sensible progression to these days of ours slipping silently and calmly away. Yet more proof that the purveyors of media are not like you and me. My life is nothing like sands through an hourglass. If I had an overly dramatic voice-over introduction to my day, it would be more like this:

"Like electrons in a quantum mechanics model, like mood swings in a teenager, like gassyness in a toddler, these are the days of Melia's life. . . ."

[cue extraordinarily cheesy music involving cowbells, oboes, slide whistles, and random animal sounds]

Since we've waded whole-heartedly into the soap opera theme, let's stick with it, 'K? For those of you who may have (intentionally or not) missed the first 10,000 or so episodes, here's a quick run down of the current day of my life. As per the great sop opera tradition there is neither rhyme, nor reason to the plotting. But there will be lots of overacting.

Scene one: Anders has a cold--again. The cold has made him more clingy than normal. Typically, he spends his day in exploring the house--pulling down books, charting unmapped hiding places, attempting to reach the secret man-cave know as "the boys' bathroom." Not so today. His mother must spend most of the day "enjoying" Mommy-and-Me wrestling--in which she lies down on the floor and allow Anders to maul and baby-handle her.

Such enforced floor-level contemplation leads her to all sorts of profound discoveries:

1. The floor smells like dirty dog. The dog smells like corn chips.
2. The dust bunnies under the couch have bad attitudes.
3. Baby barf, when puddled in the small of one's back, feels nothing like an icy-hot patch.
4. Sound carries quite well through non-carpeted floors. You can hear a four-year-old in the basement smack her older brother in the head with a baseball bat surprisingly clearly.
5. Lying face down on a hard floor is a better indicator of body mass than a scale.
   

Lots of shots of pained resignation and repeated murmurs of "Don't gouge the eye, sweetie."

[It's a slow scene, but its importance and relevance to later events will become apparent soon.]

Scene two: [partial flash-back] The basement has become a disaster zone on a post-tsunami-effect scale. With thunder in their voices and overemotion in their gestures, the mother and father had previously warned the children in no uncertain terms that IT MUST BE CLEANED UP OR ELSE! The children who heard these words have no idea what that means. Bafflement ensues. That phrase seems to translate into child terms as "Go and re-enact the Battle of Gettysburg with cars, blocks, and puppets as your troops. Extra points for realistic gore." They faithfully follow their parents' apparent orders to the letter, with realistic gore being supplied by the afore-mentioned baseball smack to the head. Two points to Lindy.

Optional: the Battle Hymn of the Republic played over slo-mo shots of miniature cars hitting walls and plastic foods being ground underfoot.

Scene three: A mom, clearly at the end of her rope, covered in various baby-supplied bodily fluids, summons the from the basement the re-enacting miscreants to justice. One--hastily patched up in authentic Civil War fashion--bless them, they've done some research!--slumps wearily against the wall. The mother--with wrath and exasperation in her eyes, sentences all the toys to immediate banishment! Close-up of children weeping and wailing--optional shot of teeth-gnashing.

Closing voice-over: Has evil triumphed? Will the toys get a last-minute reprieve? (Don't bet the farm on it!) Can our heroine--that's me!--survive another day, or will she succumb to despair and untidiness?

Tune in for our next episode to find out.
[re-cue cheesy, cow bell and slide whistle music; roll credits.]
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Yup, this is the episode that's going to lead me down the path to Baskin-Robbins.