Soap Opera Blogger/Columnist Arrested, Institutionalized

Undisclosed East Coast Location, Friday -- Part-time soap opera blogger and magazine columnist Becca Thomas was arrested for vandalism and subsequently placed in a lock-down mental health facility after an incident at her home. 

According to reports, Thomas returned from an extended business trip for her day job and became despondent over the idea of having to watch two weeks' worth of Days of Our Lives and General Hospital episodes saved on her DVR.  At her wits' end, Thomas propelled her TiVo through her living room window.  When police arrived, Thomas tried to explain her actions, but officers said she had clearly lost touch with reality.

"She kind of teared up and she started talking about how Days had made Steve and Kayla invisible, and Bo and Hope super boring, and that General Hospital was shooting kids in the head and having a mobster with a magic penis be the center of the show.  Really crazy stuff," said Deputy Kate Johnson, who said she herself used to watch those two shows until the mid-1990s.  "She also said something about a hitman being a hero, and how she would find watching the Golf Channel for a week straight more interesting than ten consecutive episodes of Days of Our Lives.  The poor woman clearly has some kind of chemical imbalance."

Sgt. Derek Harper concurred:   "At one point she was just sitting on her couch, yelling at the TV about how it had ruined the coolest thing that had ever happened to her -- getting paid to watch soap operas.  Then she said something about preferring to clean a fraternity house's bathroom rather than watch General Hospital."  Harper said Thomas appeared to calm down for a few minutes, "when she started talking about some kind of wedding of people wearing scrubs, or something . . . but then she said she would have to sit through eight other episodes of the show to get to that, not to mention two weeks' worth of some other show that she described as 'more boring than even the new 90210,' and she just couldn't do it."  Thomas again became distraught, at which point officers decided to commit her for observation at the nearby Shadysidebrookville mental hospital.

The officers said Thomas appeared resigned to being committed, even perking up a bit when Johnson confirmed that Thomas would not have access to television for at least her first 48 hours in Shadysidebrookville.  "She made a call to have a friend come to get her dog, and another to watch over her handbags and shoes, and then she went with us willingly," Johnson said.  "On the one hand, I feel bad for her, because she's clearly going through a tough time.  But on the other hand, no television show is bad enough to warrant property damage," said Harper, who later confirmed he has never watched a daytime soap opera or One Tree Hill.

Update, Sunday -- Late today, Superior Court Judge Monica Humphrey dismissed all charges against soap blogger Becca Thomas and ordered her released from a mental health facility.  Judge Humphrey explained that technically speaking, because Thomas owned both the TiVo and the window through which she hurled it, vandalism charges were not sustainable.  Observers were still a bit puzzled by Humphrey's order that Thomas be immediately released from Shadysidebrookville, given the various accounts from officers of Thomas' nonsensical rantings at the scene of the incident.  A bit of digging around the courthouse revealed that Judge Humphrey is a longtime Days of Our Lives and General Hospital viewer.  Whispered one clerk, "Judge Humphrey said Becca Thomas may be a little over-invested, but she's not insane.  And also something about 'that effing hack bastard Guza' and about how with all the laws we have, there should be one against some woman named Dena still having a job.  I don't know; it was a really weird conversation."

Others remain quietly concerned about Ms. Thomas' mental condition.  Jail officials reported that when Thomas was discharged and had her personal property returned, it included the TiVo, which the guard helpfully informed her actually still worked.  The guard explained that "At that point, she started crying again, and asked if anyone had a hammer."  A friend took Ms. Thomas to his car, and as he was backing out of his parking space in the jail parking lot, Thomas opened the door and tried to put the TiVo under the car's tires.  Her friend stopped the car before it could run over the machine.  Thomas was last seen crying in the passenger seat and asking where she could find corrosive acid like what they always throw in ingenues' faces on soap operas.

Comments

[Rochelle]

I usually just read, but this is my first time commenting. Becca that was one of the funniest things I have ever read. Thank you so much for that laugh. Hope you are feeling better. LOL hahahaha

[Susan]

lmao! Becca, you actually sat through over two weeks of back to back episodes of both General hospital and Days?! You're a braver person then me. I find it hard enough to watch one episode of each show in one day with out wigging out. I think it's a miracle that you only tried to kill your tivo!

[Nolebucgrl]

Hee, well not quite a Days blog but I'll take what I can get. I can't deny the charges you level though. I don't know how Higley won the power struggle or why, but hey, now we can have even more triangles!!! Is there room in Shadysidebrookville for me?

[esp13]

Poor Becca. I'm just glad to see that you are alive and, relatively speaking, well. We've missed you around these parts lately. Here's my advice -- read Prevuze and then only watch small parts of Days that might actually sound interesting. That's kept me going for weeks now.

[chaosrainz]

You poor thing! I sure hope you're feeling better now.
Personally I find that booze helps. :P
lol

Great post!

[Sarah]

Have you considered moving abroad, somewhere rural with no satellite television? If you needed to work you could open up a spa resort there. A place for people like us to detox from the heinousness of Daytime Dramas.

If not, good luck destroying your TiVo. And even better luck not buying another one. Addiction is a bitch.

[Beth R.]

I was wondering what had happened to you Becca....thanks for clearing that up! Hee! You certainly are a brave woman to face that wihtout the aid of like alcohol.....you are most noble...almost as noble as a mob hitman....i shall bust into song about you.

[Meggle6]

If you hate blogging about and watching Days of Our Lives then why don't you just stop? Why do something you obviously hate? Your comments on Days have been funny in the past which is why I bookmarked this site but I have been finding you hate watching it more and more. My sugggestion to you is stop then because your constant bitching about having to write about Days is annoying. I get that you mock soaps out of love and hate but it is supposed to mostly be out of love and you have spent most of your last couple months hating. Get over it or move on to something else!

[Chad]

I only saw a couple of Days episodes recently and couldn't help but think, "You've got Stefano and more DiMeras on the canvas than in over a decade, a murder mystery with multiple suspects, plenty of popular veterans from Anna DiMera to Steve Johnson, and it's still boring? This is taking work on someone's part!"

As a OLTL fan who endured most of Higley's tenure there, you have my sympathy. I just hope you don't have to see a repeat of her infamous "Here's a villain who's going to unleash all these evil and elaborate and fascinating schemes, just wait! Oh, wait, sorry, he's actually not going to do most of them...well, okay, not any of them" phase. (Wait, I guess you kind of saw that already with the promised and undelivered "civil war" between John, Stefano, and Tony. Damn. I'm really, really sorry.)

[Dawn]

Wow! If you don't like what Becca has to say STOP READING THE BLOG. That post critizing her was totally unnecessary.

[Michaela]

Dear Meggle6:

On behalf of the Internet Cliche Police, consider this an official warning for pulling out the "If you don't like it, stop watching!" cliche when someone posts something you disagree with. This sad, tired cliche is almost as old as the Internet itself, and frankly, every time it gets dragged out, we feel sorry for its empty, pathetic, valueless self. It's not even humane. Please stop.

Sincerely,
The Internet Cliche Police

[Colleen]

Becca

I feel your pain.... I just can't bring myself to watch Days on a daily basis...then I rack up 2 weeks or more....and it has been unbearably boring....

and BTW WHERE THE HELL ARE STEVE AND KAYLA??

[angmc]

Somewhere (ok, probably the Y&R set) Hogan Sheffer is laughing at Days...I know HS wasn't perfect and I wanted him gone but I still watched every day. Thanks to Dena, I haven't watched more than a dozen episodes since June.

[ande mcbeal]

I'm currently 50+ episodes back on Days. Should I even bother? What would happen to me if I did try to slog through them?

[becky jean]

Great post! Thanks so much for the laugh. I needed it more than you can know.

[katiya]

Only Days Becca? GH sucks rocks seriously. I think not only Daytime TV sucks but most TV in general is so bad....

[V]

Woo, that was so funny! LOL I think this might be one of my favorite posts of yours Becca. *can't stop laughing* I'm showing this to everyone.

However, I'm actually loving the Scorpio clan and the birth of Emma Grace Scorpio Drake. That's a cute baby. The Scorpio's actually make Spinelli tolerable for me. I never thought that would happen.

[SaggyBaskets]

"As a OLTL fan who endured most of Higley's tenure there, you have my sympathy. I just hope you don't have to see a repeat of her infamous "Here's a villain who's going to unleash all these evil and elaborate and fascinating schemes, just wait! Oh, wait, sorry, he's actually not going to do most of them...well, okay, not any of them" phase. "

Actually we already saw that with Reilly's Faux Stalking Serial Killer wimp-out.