Ever since I found myself drifting back to soap operas last September, I've come to realize how much I didn't understand them when I was much younger. Among the soaps I watched back then were "The Edge of Night", "Search for Tomorrow", "As the World Turns", "Another World", "The Doctors", a daytime version of "Peyton Place", "Days of Our Lives", "Somerset", "Ryan's Hope", and the soon-to-be-defunct "Guiding Light". As a kid they mystified me; they showed people who never smiled and were always serious or worried or sad or frightened about something . When I became a young adult, I did know that soaps were melodramatic and were meant to be as such, but there were so many characters and overlapping storylines that it got downright confusing if I didn't watch every day . "Ryan's Hope" emerged as my personal favorite because I was trying to understand family dynamics and the Ryans fitted the bill. This particular soap remains my favorite despite its occasional wacky story ideas (the funniest one had the neurotic Delia Reid Ryan character believing a male gorilla was her mother. Go figure .)

These days I don't stare confusedly at soaps so much as I laugh my head off at them. Now, don't get me wrong. I believe soap operas provide excellent training for actors wanting to break into television. Since soaps tend to be long-running, the viewers get to know the characters very well. The actors and actresses can, and often do, give beautifully nuanced performances (Anthony Geary and Lisa LoCicero of "General Hospital" come to mind). But you have to wonder how they can keep their faces straight given the goofy nature of the plots .

Soaps, set in small towns, have standard characters (policemen, lawyers, doctors, nurses, millionaire families, bartenders, teenagers, middle-class married couples with or without kids, lovers, and so on ) in familiar settings (police stations , hospitals , courtrooms, jails, restaurants , bars , wealthy family mansions with secret passages , sanitariums , houses , schools , motels). Everybody has a deep dark secret, or knows somebody who has a deep dark secret, or is made to keep one until it's time for that secret to be exposed . Character couples are broken up and paired with other characters so much that it's like watching two dozen pinballs bumping around inside a pinball machine . Sexual flings happen everywhere you look - in cars, motel rooms, stables, courtrooms, hot tubs, livingrooms, cabins, etc , either in town or out of state; as a result the landscape is peppered with full sibs, half-sibs, nieces, nephews, cousins, and long-lost relatives . Schemes, counter-schemes, intrigues and feuds abound , during which people lie up, down and all around when they're not being beaten, bribed, blackmailed, kidnapped, shot, stabbed, blown up, poisoned, drugged, raped, drowned, thrown off buildings or cliffs or down staircases, hit by cars, run off the road, or anything else the writers can think of . Plot devices such as alcoholism, drug abuse, terminal illnesses, sexually transmitted diseases, amnesia, insanity, catastrophic injuries, unplanned pregnancies, stillbirths, and newborn babies being kidnapped or switched are standard . Characters who are killed off periodically return as ghosts, memories or dreams, or they miraculously come back from the dead . McGuffins (key items that a character races to find before another does) are common.

And soap operas copy each other shamelessly. If one has a popular character called Luke ("General Hospital"), then another will have a character called Luke ("As the World Turns"). If one soap has a little girl character named Emma (Annie and Ryan Lavery's 7-year-old daughter on "All My Children"), then another soap will have a little girl character named Emma (the baby girl of Robin Scorpio and Patrick Drake on "General Hospital"). If one show has everybody crying except the bad guy, then they all have everybody crying except the bad guy . If one soap has a recurring theme about identical or fraternal twins, usually one good and one evil, then every soap must have that same theme . If one show has a character undergo a personality change after being shot in the head, or one or more characters tumble down a staircase during a heated argument, it's a sure bet the other soaps will do the same .

Character behavior on soaps is a hoot and a half . If a character is told not to do something, they immediately do the very thing they've been told not to do . The same goes for a character being advised to do something; they don't do it . Soap characters tend to barge into rooms where something is going on or where other characters are talking about them , or they pop up unexpectedly on somebody's doorstep . They also eavesdrop on other characters, which can lead to the above scenes . And some characters cry a lot, so if you're an actor or an actress playing such a character on a soap opera, be ready to switch on the waterworks at a moment's notice . (A good example is Laura Wright who plays Carly Corinthos Jax on "General Hospital". During one week they had her crying in every other scene !)

The storylines can be hilarious. "All My Children" is currently doing a riff on the old board game "Clue" with a "Who Killed Sweet-Natured Stuart Chandler, Believing It Was His Evil Businessman Twin Brother Adam Chandler" plot . Seems Adam knowingly allowed a faulty heart valve to be surgically placed into the body of baby Ian Slater, the child of Zach Slater and Erica Kane's daughter Kendall Hart . When the little tyke seemingly died, Zach, Kendall, and surgeon David Hayward swore revenge . They sneaked into a darkened Chandler mansion during your typical dark-and-stormy night to plug Adam, not knowing that at least seven or eight other people, Erica Kane among them, were also pussy-footing around the mansion for their own reasons (the camera incessantly jumping back and forth between three upraised pistols seemingly aimed at Adam made me yell, "Shoot the poor bastard already, will ya?!"). In the midst of this rigamarole were subplots regarding David's unknown daughter Marissa coming to Pine Valley to replace her fraternal twin sister Babe who died during a series of freak tornadoes last September, Babe's widower J.R. falling off the wagon after Babe's death , and serious Tad Martin becoming a veritble stand-up comedian after being mistakenly shot in the head by police chief Jesse Hubbard . I think you get my drift.

"General Hospital" is the most fun, with so many mafioso-types in it that I'm tempted to rename the show "General Mobster" . The main story-arc they have now concerns gangster Sonny Corinthos's oldest son Michael waking up from a year-long coma after being accidentally shot in the head with the bullet that was meant for his father . Michael forgives Sonny for putting him in harm's away , yet rages at his mother Carly, Sonny's ex-wife, for not being at his bedside when he wakes up ! Subplots include Sonny, Carly, and the wealthy Quartermaines squabbling over whom Michael should live with , Michael's violent rage at being hospitalized and his friendship with rebellious sister Kristina (Sonny's daughter with lady lawyer Alexis Davis, who's also the mother of tough-cookie Samantha McCall), Nikolas Cassadine's romance with Rebecca Shaw, a dead-ringer (pun intended) for his late wife Emily Quartermaine , Nikolas's evil grandmother Helena prowling in the background (gotta love those evil grandmas! ), Dr. Robin Scorpio returning after being treated for a post-partum depression that made her accidentally push her baby girl Emma down a flight of stairs , a suspicious Lucky Spencer's resentment of his father Luke's bond with newly discovered half-brother Ethan Lovett , and Ethan working a scam with Rebecca . Like I said, you get my drift.