Spit-Up, Poop, Handymen, a Smart-Ass Uncle, and Dallas

I have another addiction. One I don't readily speak of. Ty-man knows about it, my mother fears it, and my friends simply shake their heads in pity because of it. I. Love. Dallas. Damn, that Bobby Ewing was one sexy man.

See, almost four years ago, the Soap channel began showing re-runs of Dallas. I happened to catch the first episode and realized what was going on. Wow. They're going to show every single episode of Dallas, beginning to end, every weekday at 5PM. My TiVo was rocking. I had watched the whole "Who Shot J.R.?" debacle back in 1980 when I was the tender age of eight. I didn't know what was going on, just that my mother was obsessed over finding out who was the shooter. Watching the reruns on Soap gave me the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. I went on the web and found Ultimate Dallas, a site whose name speaks for itself. There, I found out there were 13 (dear God, 13) seasons of Dallas as well as three TV movies. Eighteen months after I began, I finally finished all 13 seasons and three movies. I knew more about Dallas than I had ever wanted to know. Ty-man couldn't believe I had stuck with it (even through the "dream" season when Pam dreamed Bobby was dead).

Now, Dallas is like an old friend. When the kids are asleep and house is quiet, I turn on Dallas in the background. I'll still record it on my TiVo and play it while surfing through my favorite blogs or paying bills. I listen to it while I fold laundry or wash dishes. I can listen to a few minutes of an episode and tell you the storyline and what's going on, and can probably tell you in which season the episode belongs.

I mention Dallas today because I will now and forever remember the sixth season episode "Hush, Hush, Sweet Jesse" as the episode when Miss-Miss had a 101 degree fever, when J-man spit up more milk than he drank, pooped all over the Boppy pillow after not pooping for 48 hours, and sat up for the first time, when my Uncle Jeff called and I hung up on him because I thought he was a telemarketer, and that it was the episode that our handyman brought his sick wife to help him clean out our gutters. She used our telephone, after which we found out she was the carrier of some unknown viral crud, and it had to be sprayed down with Lysol. Yes, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Jesse," the episode when Clayton's loony sister Jessica kidnaps Miss Ellie in order to stop Ellie's marriage to Clayton, the episode when Pam finds out that it was her sister Katherine who broke up her marriage to Bobby, and episode when Peter gets arrested for cocaine possession, cocaine planted in his car by J.R., this will be the episode of poop, spit-up, a fever, my smart-ass uncle, and a virus-infested telephone.

Ah, memories....