The Oppenheimer Report 4-18-16

My sister Jill and I (circa 1959)

This is one of my earlier reports, back when it was called "The Hyman Report". It was written approximately two years after I began writing the weekly reports, and several months before I married Shauna. In those early years, I was a little more inclined to go for the cheap laugh. To follow is a prime example of my earliest attempts to write humor. As I said, because very few read these earliest reports, I wanted to reprise some of them now ...

THE HYMAN REPORT - 2/28/94 .....

Today's subject is soap operas, because I had the good fortune to watch almost an entire episode of one the other day. I think the one I watched was called "The Vain And The Bulimic" but there are a lot of other good ones too ... "The Vacuous And Without a Clue", "The Wretched And The Incontinent", "The Plump And The Flatulent", "The Inbred And Overpaid" ... and they all represent legitimate T.V. at its best. This is just a hunch, but I'll bet more women watch these shows than men. Then again, who knows.

 

I was watching with someone who not only knew what was going on, but actually tapes the show daily so as not to miss any of the car accidents, abortions, and disfiguring lover's quarrels ... there's at least one of these in every episode.

First, there's Rex - he's the leading man - who has porked just about every female on the show - and now, he's got illegitimate children running around marrying each other. Big problems. We're trying to get one of those marriages annulled right now but it's hard because they have to dig up the dead mother, one of Rex's ex's, to see if this really WAS one of his, or rather the son of one of the forty-two other men she slept with (she died having sex with #42  ... they made an episode out of it ... she vapor-locked aspirating a large piece of kielbasa during foreplay ... the scene took TEN minutes). Rex is also called "Mumbles" because he can't seem to annunciate. Frankly, I can't understand how he got the acting job in the first place, unless the script called for a mumbling, middle-aged stud with bushy eyebrows ... I have this image of women all over North America with their ears pinned to the T.V. because they can't understand what Mumbles is saying ... pearls of wisdom like, "I won't be able to live with myself if illegitimate daughter #2 marries illegitimate son #3! ... I'll have to fall off a balcony in a drunken stupor, or drive my car off a cliff, or drown in a whirlpool bath or something ..."  I forgot to mention, Mumbles is rich, and that's how rich guys die. In the soaps, they NEVER die choking on their own puke or shoveling snow. This bothers me.

Then, there's the baby who got stolen in the hospital by a woman who had it out for the mother, and I'm not sure why, but we still don't know who the father is, even though there are ten guys who say they are. The problem is, one of the men has just been diagnosed with leprosy, so we all hope it wasn't him. That baby has enough problems ... did I mention that the mother was a nun?

It's never a dull moment on the "Vain And The Bulimic". But as engrossing as this show is, I can't afford to get addicted to daytime T.V. First you start off watching one, then you're juggling three; then, before you know it, you're hooked and you're discussing them with fellow cretins ... Did Alexis lose BOTH her big toes? .... Will Brock find the mysterious gypsy woman who saw Fellicia maim Sergei with the hedge trimmer ... will that glass eye fit? ... does Alicia know that it was Evelyn who bit off Gordon's penis during the car accident that stormy night? ... Did Mumbles have bad orthodontia as a boy?  Wait til you see the one I'm gonna write!  -r.h-