For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 12, 2021

Oops! I think John just revealed to Elly that he had been up watching soap operas while she was at work and not lying in bed all day.

Yikes.

John, you have to get out of bed and out of the house A.S.A.P

Weeell…. As a man, I will say this…. When a man is in prison or bedridden, his woman will usually stay with him… she will wait for him. But if a woman is in prison, bedridden or sick, far too often, her man will leave her. This is just my observation.

Here he is worried she would leave him when in reality he left her.

Better Soap Operas than faux news psychosis

Bring him a bible and a wheel chair. He’ll be up in no time.

Watching the Broken Home Specials

No shave, no shower. I wouldn’t sleep with him.

Leaving John just for that? Hmm, I would not put that past Elly.

He’s gone stir crazy!

John and Lynn are commenting on afternoon soap operas,whose sole purpose is to think up ways to make the actors’ lives miserable.

This is entertainment?

I think Susan Lucci should go out and get a job!!

Soap operas will definitely rot a person’s brain yet plenty of people watch them daily. That explains a lot.

As for the name, ‘soap opera’…. it came into being because, when they began on radio in the 1930’s then flourished on TV in the 1950’s, most of those daytime dramas were sponsored by companies that manufactured and sold soap. The very first TV daytime soap opera was “These Are My Children” that premiered on NBC in Chicago on January 31, 1949. But it was short lived when canceled after only 24 episodes.

At the other end of the spectrum, the longest running daytime soap opera ever is ‘Coronation Street’ that debuted in 1960 in the UK and continues to the present. The longest running one in the USA is ‘General Hospital’ that kicked off in 1963 and is still cranking out episodes. It replaced ‘As The World Turns’ at #1 when that show was canceled in 2010.

I only ever watched one soap opera, even to the point of taping it during the day to watch it when I got home from work. I can absolutely see where Lynn would get the term “Soap Opera Psychosis”. (I gave up on even that show when I realized one day just how stupid it really was.)

The only daytime soap opera I ever watched was All My Children. My wife got me into it early in our marriage.

But, similar to what John is going through, I did once experience a severe case of “Daytime TV Boredom.” I was home from work for five weeks with a case of mono, and not capable of doing much except for lying around watching television. The experience convinced me that daytime TV producers were in cahoots with businesses to make the worst possible programs, in order to encourage those of us at home to get back to work as quickly as possible.

That would definitely do it!