My heart sank when I heard the news.

ABC had dropped the axe after years of declining ratings, and was going to cancel the long-running soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live.

To the surprise of everyone, including myself, I was devastated.

It was like finding out an old friend was going to be taken off life support. I'd been watching soap operas ever since I was twelve. My grandmother got me hooked on Days of Our Lives during the "Marlena gets possessed by the devil" plot line while she was babysitting me over summer vacation.

"He's a boy," she told my mother, "He'll like all that violent, Satan stuff."

Apparently it never occurred to her that sending me into junior high school talking about things like Vivian's scheming and the Carrie-Austin-Mike love triangle might be like sending a bleeding man into a shark tank.

Luckily, my mom caught the problem before it was too late.

The night before my first day of school she said--

"Look, I'll tape the show for you, but you can't talk about it--ever--to anyone."

I agreed. How could I not?

Sami's wedding was that week!

As time went on, however, I matured past the over-the-top plot lines and poor writing on Days...

...and moved over to the nuanced and subtle stories on All My Children, One Life to Live, and--my all-time favorite--General Hospital.

As time went on, I would miss a few weeks here and there of the other shows, but never GH (as we diehard fans call it).

To be honest, I let out a sigh of relief when I found out that AMC and OLTL were getting cancelled, but that GH had been spared. I was expecting a clean sweep. After all, soap operas have gone the way of the tape deck in terms of "cool."

As someone who likes to pride themselves on their taste in pop culture, I never freely admit that my guilty pleasure is the guiltiest of them all in terms of sheer camp. It's not so much that soap operas are cheesy; it's that they take themselves so seriously. And sadly, so did I for so many years. I would find myself defending them to someone in a moment of confession, only to hear myself saying things like--

"...She's really an excellent actress! That scene where she admitted to her biological mother that she only slept with her stepfather to...okay, never mind."

Even now, finding another kindred soap spirit is a rare occurrence. I'll be at a party and overhear someone mentioning Luke and Laura's wedding and my ears will perk up. I'll meet the person's gaze across the room, and we'll share a moment of understanding.

Ah yes, my friend, I say silently, I'm one of you.

Now it seems like time will take care of keeping my secret hidden. Eventually all the soaps will vanish. The Soapnet channel is gone. One day future generations will talk about General Hospital and wonder how something so corny ever survived for so long.

And I'll hear that and remember fondly my little guilty pleasure.