May 17, 2011
Your Past Will Catch Up With You
This is really the golden rule of soap operas and of money management. On Days of Our Lives, it doesn't matter how careful you think you are when you switch those babies and/or DNA results. It doesn't matter how thoroughly you think you've covered your tracks after kidnapping your legally dead sworn enemy, bringing him back to life in some kind of Frankenstein-like experiment and programming him to be your soldier. You will eventually get caught and have to face the music. Finances are the same way. Defaulted on that student loan? Failed to make your car payments on time? Stopped paying off that credit card when you moved? The powers that be i.e. debt collectors will eventually find you. On soaps and on your credit report, Your Past Will Catch Up With You.
Identity Theft Is a [Rhymes With Witch]
Ask Rafe Hernandez, DOOL's latest identity theft victim, and I'm sure he will tell you: Getting your identity stolen is really, really inconvenient. Now sure, in Rafe's case he was kidnapped and held prisoner in a basement while being injected with memory-erasing drugs while a perfect plastic surgery-made replica of himself took over his marriage, job and day-to-day life. But getting your social security number and other vital info stolen is seriously just as bad.
Even if you are on top of things and report the theft and alert the credit reporting companies, that jerk who stole your identity can still come back to haunt you later on in the form of random accounts and charges. Let's hope faux-Rafe does not come back to haunt rightful Rafe in a similar fashion, now that Rafe's wife Sami knows the truth about the identity theft (I'm still a few episodes behind on the DVR! No spoilers, please!). Either way, identity theft truly is a [rhymes with witch] and you need to do everything in your power to prevent it.
People Can Change
Speaking of Sami Brady Reed Walker Horton DiMera Hernandez, she is the perfect example of our third DOOL money lesson: people can change. Sami has done some really bad things. She tried to sell her baby sister on the black market, switched at least two sets of paternity results, lied about the paternity of her own children, schemed and blackmailed on an almost daily basis and, during a particularly strange interlude, dressed like a man named Stan and caused some trouble in the Middle East.
However, for the last year or so, Sami has turned over a new leaf. Sure, she still makes the occasional mistake like shooting one of her ex-husbands in a fit of blind rage, but she is really trying to be a better person and mostly succeeding. Overspenders and debt-ridden folks with low credit scores can change, too. All it takes is a little hard work and some breaking of bad habits. No more pricey lattes, brew your own coffee at home. No more using credit cards to pay bills, instead concentrate on what you can do to get your bills lower. No more seducing your sister's boyfriend and using bulimia as a blackmailing tool--instead concentrate on being a good mother and re-programming your brainwashed husband.
Oh wait, that last one is Sami again.
In Conclusion
The moral of this story? The next time someone berates you for your mindless choice in television programs, make a stretch beyond all credulity and tell them what life lessons you are learning from said programs.
I'm sure those Real Housewives have some cautionary tales to tell. The Price is Right is probably making you a much more mindful consumer. And soap operas teach you to cherish your children while they are young, because before you know it you turn around and they are a teenager being played by a much older actor even though you are still the same age.
Your Past Will Catch Up With You
This is really the golden rule of soap operas and of money management. On Days of Our Lives, it doesn't matter how careful you think you are when you switch those babies and/or DNA results. It doesn't matter how thoroughly you think you've covered your tracks after kidnapping your legally dead sworn enemy, bringing him back to life in some kind of Frankenstein-like experiment and programming him to be your soldier. You will eventually get caught and have to face the music. Finances are the same way. Defaulted on that student loan? Failed to make your car payments on time? Stopped paying off that credit card when you moved? The powers that be i.e. debt collectors will eventually find you. On soaps and on your credit report, Your Past Will Catch Up With You.
Identity Theft Is a [Rhymes With Witch]
Ask Rafe Hernandez, DOOL's latest identity theft victim, and I'm sure he will tell you: Getting your identity stolen is really, really inconvenient. Now sure, in Rafe's case he was kidnapped and held prisoner in a basement while being injected with memory-erasing drugs while a perfect plastic surgery-made replica of himself took over his marriage, job and day-to-day life. But getting your social security number and other vital info stolen is seriously just as bad.
Even if you are on top of things and report the theft and alert the credit reporting companies, that jerk who stole your identity can still come back to haunt you later on in the form of random accounts and charges. Let's hope faux-Rafe does not come back to haunt rightful Rafe in a similar fashion, now that Rafe's wife Sami knows the truth about the identity theft (I'm still a few episodes behind on the DVR! No spoilers, please!). Either way, identity theft truly is a [rhymes with witch] and you need to do everything in your power to prevent it.
People Can Change
Speaking of Sami Brady Reed Walker Horton DiMera Hernandez, she is the perfect example of our third DOOL money lesson: people can change. Sami has done some really bad things. She tried to sell her baby sister on the black market, switched at least two sets of paternity results, lied about the paternity of her own children, schemed and blackmailed on an almost daily basis and, during a particularly strange interlude, dressed like a man named Stan and caused some trouble in the Middle East.
However, for the last year or so, Sami has turned over a new leaf. Sure, she still makes the occasional mistake like shooting one of her ex-husbands in a fit of blind rage, but she is really trying to be a better person and mostly succeeding. Overspenders and debt-ridden folks with low credit scores can change, too. All it takes is a little hard work and some breaking of bad habits. No more pricey lattes, brew your own coffee at home. No more using credit cards to pay bills, instead concentrate on what you can do to get your bills lower. No more seducing your sister's boyfriend and using bulimia as a blackmailing tool--instead concentrate on being a good mother and re-programming your brainwashed husband.
Oh wait, that last one is Sami again.
In Conclusion
The moral of this story? The next time someone berates you for your mindless choice in television programs, make a stretch beyond all credulity and tell them what life lessons you are learning from said programs.
I'm sure those Real Housewives have some cautionary tales to tell. The Price is Right is probably making you a much more mindful consumer. And soap operas teach you to cherish your children while they are young, because before you know it you turn around and they are a teenager being played by a much older actor even though you are still the same age.
