Coffeerooms Y(our) Stories

A Stay-at-Home Mom Laments the End
of her Favorite Daytime Soap
by Mary Beth Coudal

Many people assume because I am a SAHM (stay-at-home mom), I just don’t understand the workings of the work-a-day world. But the talking heads on the television news these last five weeks never underestimated me. They explained it all to me and then some.

I loved the legalese I never understood. What is Article 2 and why should I care? But the commentators thought I knew and I liked that.

Having Eileen O’Connor and Mike Boettcher of CNN in my home was a refreshing change from my other daytime adult company- the teenage babysitter, the Con Ed meter reader and, if I’m lucky, the chirpy UPS delivery guy.

With three children under the age of four, watching the saga wasn’t always easy. Wresting the remote control from the hands of Catherine, one of my twins, was almost as hard as snatching Florida from the clutches of Katherine Harris. (My Catherine used the remote as a teething toy. I wonder if the other Katherine was cutting her teeth too.)

I tried to explain to my kids (two of whom are pre-verbal) -- Why watch Dragon Tales when we can watch the Battling Juniors Dragging Their Tails?

I told them, "This is historic. This is my Watergate. As a kid growing up in Skokie, Illinois, I remember my Mom and Aunt Kathy riveted to the televised Watergate proceedings while the eight of us cousins overturned Monopoly boards, sunk each other’s battleships and threw water balloons at each other’s heads. Someday you may remember me saying, like my mother said to me over the hum of the TV, 'Shhhhhh, be quiet now, kids. This is important.'"

This time around, my sister Kathy, also a SAHM, was watching too. We had long long-distance phone calls. In one, she confessed she felt a certain something for David Boies. I admitted I found Dan Abrams very sexy.

My buddy from high school, RJ, gushed, "I did have the hots for Campbell Brown down in Austin. And then there’s Lis Wiehl from the University of Washington. They’re hotter than any soap opera babes because they're so damn smart!"

And they made me feel smart for watching them. But these guys and gals are packing up and leaving our living rooms today.

What am I supposed to do now -- stuck at home alone with three babies? Shop on-line for Christmas presents? Change another poopy diaper? Make something for dinner?

No. For a few minutes, I think I’ll just sit back and let the excitement of November and December still warm me. For a while there, life just got so meaningful.

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