guilty pleasures

I don't normally post more than once in a day, but it's cold and wet outside, so I'm staying inside... and I decided that I'm going to tell you a secret. 

One of my guilty pleasures is watching General Hospital - yes, a daytime soap opera. Thanks to modern technology, I can catch up on episodes by watching them online since I'm obviously at work at 2 p.m. CST when it's airing on ABC. And I do. Regularly.

When I was in college, a roomie of mine was a huge GH fan, and - because we usually had to be in class when it was on, we would set the VCR to tape it. Remember the VCR?  Anyway, we would come home from class and watch it together, and she got me hooked and, after she graduated and I was still in school, I kept taping it on the VCR and watching it (while my other roomie would watch Days of Our Lives). The third roomie laughed at us, I think.

After I graduated from college I worked in a job where I was most often working evenings, but ended up missing it quite a bit and wasn't taping it anymore. I watched when I could and then weened myself off. Probably about 8-10 months ago, and I'm not sure what triggered it, but I started watching episodes online and am hooked again.

The funny thing about soap operas that the actors for the same characters can change - and life goes on in soap-land like nothing has changed.  And its amazing how you can get used to the new actor relatively quickly. Alternatively, there are some actors who were on the show in the 70s and are still on it now.  They may have taken breaks in between, but they came back.

The other thing I find interesting is that kids in soaps can age suddenly to be a few years older than they were -- and suddenly they are teenagers.  And that takes a little while to get used to, but then everything seems OK, again. Yet, for some reason, the older actors never seem to age at all. Some of these people look exactly the same as they did 10 years ago. Normally, I don't think I would like that kind of inconsistency in a show, but for some reason, GH is my guilty pleasure. I mean, seriously, name one primetime show that does this stuff?

Regardless, I am coming out as a GH fan. Judge me if you want.

What's your guilty pleasure?

Are you a closet soap fan?