“Hello, my name is Leana and I’m addicted … to soap operas.”

My grandma got me hooked when I was about five. She would watch me during the day while my parents worked. It started off real innocent-like: “How about we turn off ‘Sesame Street’ for an hour or so and watch ‘As the World Turns.'” Then she started sneaking in “Guiding Light” and “Another World,” and before I knew it I was watching four soaps every afternoon. To hell with playing with my Barbies and playing soccer at the park, I HAD to watch my soaps.

It only got worse with age. My summers consisted of “Young and the Restless,” then “All My Children,” followed by “One Life to Live,” and ending with “Guiding Light.” I never went outside, my skin would stay its subtle shade of pale and my mom would force me to get up and walk around the house every so often to make sure my muscles wouldn’t start to atrophy.

In college I have become even more out of control. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered I could actually schedule my classes AROUND my favorite soap!! Never again would I have to spend my days in classes distressing about what Josh and Reva were up to and hoping Danny would find out about all of Phyllis’ dirty tricks.

The fact that soaps are so utterly ridiculous is the main reason people watch them. Nothing in ‘real life’ is ever as exciting as what happens on our favorite soap. Soap operas give average, ordinary people the opportunity to slip away from their average, ordinary lives, for an hour each day to forget about how dull their lives actually are.

In soap land life is more dramatic and intriguing for many reasons:

No one ever dies in soap land. Unless we see the body and/or death of the character, we can only assume the person is somewhere with amnesia and will reappear, sometime down the road, with a new face, to cause trouble on the day his or her husband or wife was planning to remarry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve attended a wedding and watched as the presumed dead spouse walks in to break up the happy occasion.

In soap land people walk around in designer clothes and visit each other, but never seem to work or have any real employment, unless they are CEO of a corporation or heir to a fortune. The can get from point A to point B in a matter of seconds. I think they might be using the transporter beam from the Starship Enterprise, but I’m not certain.

In soap land children age at the speed of light. A woman can give birth to a baby girl in the spring, and attend the child’s wedding in the summer. I bet her baby book was a pretty thin read.

In soap land people change their husbands and wives more often than many of us change our underwear — not me, but some people I know.

It is true, like many young college students I spend part of my day sucking in the rays from the television screen. Soaps are easy to comprehend, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on, and you don’t even need to pay that much attention. You can go without watching for a month and come back in one day and get caught up on all the news.

Men don’t play like you don’t watch soaps too. “Days of Our Lives” seems to be a big hit among college males. If you mention “Days” most men will at least be able to associate it to the soap opera with the chick who was possessed by the devil. “Days” is by far the most annoying, yet captivating of all the soaps. Last year “Days of Our Lives” scripted 44 actual days as compared to our 365. An entire day can last two weeks, seconds can last days, and Stefano Dimera can come back from the dead at least three times a year without anyone catching on to the coincidence of it.

Even though the show drags out annoying storylines, its popularity is unwavering. It ranks the highest each week in the ratings and usually sweeps the Daytime Emmy Awards.

Much like drugs, soap operas keep people coming back the next day for another “fix,” and each day the person ends up needing more then what they have gotten. But will we boycott the show, turn off the television, or read a book? NEVER!!! We may miss something. We can’t take that chance.

Soaps are an escape, they are for entertainment and that’s what I have to constantly remind myself. If Sammy and Austin get together it isn’t the end of my world. It would destroy all my faith in the belief that true love will prevail above evil, but that’s all. Perhaps we should all take tips from soap opera characters:

If you die and wait more then a year to come back from the dead, don’t be surprised if you best friend is married to your husband.

If you take a plane, it is sure to crash.

Don’t sleep with your wife’s sister, because she’s bound to become pregnant.

Don’t do anything illegal, because someone will find out and blackmail you.

And finally the most important … don’t get hooked on soaps. People on soap operas never watch television.

I guess I could have worse addictions.

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Leana Benson is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Madrid.