I have often thought it would be fun to be a soap opera character. Most are gorgeous, confident, and well-connected. They may not all have money, but they all have ways of getting away with murder—sometimes literally. The women all have great hair and wardrobes so large they never have to wear the same thing twice.

And where else but on a soap is a girl gonna find so many hot men to choose from?

If I ever was on a soap, I don’t know what my name would be or which family I would be connected to. I do know one thing—I would not want to be a woman living in Llanview, PA.

Is there something in there, something every female in Llanview has ingested to cause such bad luck? There sure to seems to be an epidemic of it going around.

Take a look at Adrianna, for instance. For the past year or two, she has been madly in love with Rex, a man her over-protective mother felt was inappropriate for her. The girl has survived a psycho stalker (originally hired by her mother) and started a company from scratch. Then she broke things off with Rex, who lied about investigating her new friend and business associate, Tate. Now she is beginning to date Tate, unaware that he is a racist who wants nothing more than to see her dead.

Then there is Adrianna’s best friend and business partner, Layla. Layla came to town to be near her sister. Now Evangeline is in a coma, clinging to life, thanks to Tate’s hatred.

Starr’s first real romance has been plagued with problems since the beginning. Years ago, Starr’s father raped Cole’s mother, and Starr’s father miscarried a child with Cole’s father. To say there is animosity between the parents is an understatement. Yet even Cole’s terrifying experience with steroids couldn’t keep Starr from falling for him. The teens were eventually able to convince their mother’s to allow them to date. But that could change when Starr’s father is found—and when she finds out that Cole knows more about his disappearance than he is saying.

Life for Cole’s Mom hasn’t been lucky lately, either. Marty returned to Llanview after the death of her true love, Patrick. Then she married Miles, who threatened to take her taped murder confession to the Llanview police if she didn’t marry him. She has been laying to Cole and John, the man she is developing feelings for. Marty is pretending to be in love with Miles, even though the sight of him makes her skin crawl.

And could anyone possibly be having worse luck than Jessica? After the successful integration of her two personalities, she found herself torn between two men. She made her choice, then was diagnosed with hepatitis C and liver cancer. She survived a bomb blast during transplant surgery, only to have her body reject Antonio’s liver. Ironic as she had just rejected Antonio.

On second thought, maybe I don’t want to be a soap character. Maybe I am better off living my own “boring” life.