Yesterday I was with Avery at a playground. There were some older kids playing there, 2 girls and 1 boy.  The girls were acting out some kind of drama in which the one girl would pretend to be “dead” and the other girl would be the doctor and try “everything” to save her but finally she would get the oxygen and that would save the poor dead girl’s life.  It was somewhat amusing to watch.  Two statements caused me to almost laugh out loud.

1) “When do I get to be the dead girl?”

and

2) (To the boy) “I’ll be dead and you try and save me and then you fall in love with me!”

This sequence of events was repeated over and over and I found myself thinking this is the stuff that General Hospital or just about any soap opera is composed of and this boring, melodramatic and repetitive storyline are part of the reasons that I don’t like soaps.  But I do remember playing at very similar games when I was a little girl.  Somehow the drama of being saved from death and the romance of falling in love just never grows old.  When I think about it, these two themes are the basic content of most movies.  I guess it’s an ageless desire to live out the drama of a soap opera.