Do I live in a soap opera? I forget...

Recently while hanging out with some friends, a woman I didn't know stopped by our table.  She turned out to be a frequent contact with most of the others, and after introductions we (the whole crew) bantered friendly stories and laughs.  She seemed pleasant, if somewhat loud and aggressive.

After she left again, everyone turned on her, shaking their heads all the while. 

Turns out she got married to a dying man who was having an affair with her best friend, whom she was also sleeping with, and there are kids here and there and there was a big disaster that killed one person's parents, and the money from the life insurance makes a slothful life of dissapation and....

Holy crap!

By the time they got through explaining the love quadrangle, I was aghast.  And it just kept on coming.  There's mismanagement of funds, attempted suicides, trysts in secret, and on and on and on.  It was like being fed the storylines for the last 30 years of "Guiding Light"... except it only takes 10 minutes.  And there's only like five characters.

I felt bad for the now-blissfully-beyond-earshot lady, who didn't just have whispers behind her back -- she had the equivalent of the Red Army choir doing Wagner.  But on the other hand, the sheer volume of material puts you into a strange sort of "can't be real" mindset that compelled me to just laugh in astonishment.  Let's face it: once your circle of friends knows that you may have committed insurance fraud to support your heroin addiction, your life has become a matter of public record.

Sure, it's wrong to gossip but COME ON!  There must be some sort of gimmie based on the magnitude of the deeds.  Even I can't resist telling the story to you all, minus some changes and obfuscations.  These people's lives belong in a museum, for subsequent generations to study and make into iambic pentameter plays.

It reminds me of the saga of a friend's friend, whose wife went off to do her nursely duty in Florida after a hurricane.  She returned ... with a man, announced that she fell in love and wanted a divorce.  And, by the way, would her existing husband mind moving out of his own house?  Plus, she's taking the kids. And they're moving to Texas. Oh, and the new beau has a felony conviction for violent assault.

To this kind of thing, all I can say is "How on earth can you piss off Fate that much and still be alive and walking?"

Never again shall I idly wonder if my life needs more intrigue and scandal.  It turns out I'm perfectly content with the current level.

Comments

  1. I think to myself sometimes, Beauty in simplicity, tragedy in confusing peace and true privacy with obscurity.

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  2. I've often thought that some people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them.

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