The Special Report

“The Special Report"
By Robert Stewart


I hear the call everyday at 3 o’clock, the tea kettle is about to whistle for tea, our orange tabby cat, Reggie, is meowing to go outside for his last run of the day, and my wife, Rose, exclaims “Time for General”! She is referring to “General Hospital”, a long running television soap opera of which she is an avid fan. I personally could not care less about the
show but I like the tea and enjoy the company so I sit down next to her on the couch with a book or magazine.

On this day Rose is even more interested than usual. The storyline has been getting exciting in the last few days as half of the cast is on a train as is a hit man for the Miami mob. Various periodicals that cover soap operas have been reporting that a main character is going to die. Rose’s energy is rubbing off on me and I have even snuck a peak or two as the story focused on the train. My wife is on the edge of her seat mumbling such things as “Oh no”, “C’mon”, and “Oh my god”! The Miami hit man
murders the conductor and sabotages the train. I now close my book and watch as the train collides with another train in a tunnel and we hear sounds of screeching metal and people screaming. We see bodies being thrown about, electric sparks, flames, smoke, and utter mayhem. As the noise quiets, the smoke settles and the people arise and begin to survey their predicament the show goes to a commercial. We hear “important” information about microwaveable brownies, McDonalds, automobile insurance, a new musical compact disc, and a Catherine Zeta Jones
movie – yeah, whatever, lets get back to the show!

The program continues and we start getting hints as to who the unfortunate character may be. Courtney, who is pregnant, along with Jax and Nicholas, one of who is the father of the unborn baby but nobody knows which, are all ok. However, Lucky, whose longtime fiancée just had a miscarriage with an artificially inseminated Jax sired fetus, is not
ok. He has been wounded. As we are about to find out how serious it is the television screen goes blank; we hear some corny music and then see the words “Special Report”. On the screen appears the network’s local affiliate’s anchorman, Biff Buccannon. Biff apologizes for the interruption. “It’s ok” I think to myself, ever since September 11th, 2001 I would hope that if something bad is happening that the media would let us know immediately. My wife looks less agreeable, perhaps even angry, definitely annoyed, very annoyed. She also looks as if she knows what they are going to say and that this happened before. The anchorman informs us that field correspondent Nosy Ned Flanders is on the scene and the super-cam equipped helicopter is over a town in Ocean county. I recognize the area and I know that it is about an hour drive from our home. I am hoping that this is not the site of a terror attack but Rose does not look concerned. She seemed to expect the story we were about to hear, Nosy Ned explained that there was a cat stuck in a tree and a boy scout went up to retrieve his feline friend but sadly the limb broke and the boy scout suffered a broken arm during the fall. After assuring us that they would update this breaking story on the 5 o’clock news we were allowed to resume watching our show.

As I sat in stunned silence Rose went into a rant about how this happens all the time and she is sick and tired of it. Of course we can not discuss it because the show is back on and now we have to try to figure out what we missed with the characters and their ongoing tragedy. The show is by now ending and we will learn that several characters are injured but we will have to wait until tomorrow to figure out who.

The next day at 3 o’clock, Rose calls, Reggie goes out, the tea kettle whistles and I sit down with my book to pretend I’m not interested in the show. The program starts out slowly of course, running scenes involving the half of the cast not on the train, Some of the characters are learning of the crash however and are making their way to help. We have by now found out that in addition to Lucky’s injury, which is serious, that Reece, a character my wife despises, has a mysterious injury. Reece is a former, F.B.I. agent turned mobster’s girlfriend and is one of the very few female characters not currently or recently pregnant. So her pains are probably not a miscarriage as any savvy soap watcher would expect.
Above the tunnel a rescue mission begins however the characters not in the crash doubt the competence of the professionals so they conduct a separate mission. Their respective occupations include lawyer, doctor, mob hit man, and millionaire playboy so they are very qualified, at least in the world of soaps. As they begin their descent down a ventilation shaft it collapses! The dust settles and we see that one person is not moving and then the screen goes blank. Corny music and the screen reading “Special Report” appear and the anchorman apologizes for the interruption. Biff then introduces the meteorologist “Tornado” Tom Spielman.

Tornado Tom once predicted 3 feet (1 meter) of snow, sending half of the city’s people scrambling to buy all the milk, bread, and bottled water they could find. We wound up with a bright sunny day of 50 degrees (F) (10 Celsius) and a lot of stale bread and sour milk. Tornado Tom tells us that Tropical Storm Lu Lu has been upgraded to a hurricane and is now 1200 miles off the coast of Mexico and moving at 10 miles per hour. While I’m not a mathematician I know that the storm will not make landfall for a week and certainly not before 5 o’clock! Rose is, well, Rose colored and not even looking at the television. I am confused as to whom decides when to air these special reports and why they do so carelessly. As the show resumes we have no way of finding out who was injured as they are on another storyline. In the show’s coming attractions however we see exciting scenes with more collapsing in the tunnel and something hinting at a main character’s painful decision!

This day I am ready. I have the kettle whistling, I put Reggie out and I call to Rose “Time for General”! She comes down to the living room where I am impatiently waiting on the couch, sans the book as I won’t be able to fake a lack of interest.

In today’s episode time is running out for the victims. The hero will have to be Jason. Jason is cast as a protagonist however he is a mob hit man for a mob boss who is on the train. Jason’s girlfriend is on the train as well as his ex-girlfriend who his girlfriend picked up because she has the cure for Jason’s current mysterious medical problem, which is not pregnancy, thankfully. Also on the train is Jason’s dear friend Carly, however nobody knows that she is on the train besides the viewers and the Miami hit man who is responsible for bringing her on the train. Carly herself doesn’t even know she is on the train as she is clinically insane and committed to a mental hospital.

Jason arrives on the scene and must make a difficult decision; who to rescue first. His choices are his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend who possesses the cure to his medical problem, pregnant Courtney, Alexis, who is currently giving birth, Reece, who is the current paramour of his boss, Carly, his dear friend, who he truly loves but who was married to his boss as of two months ago and was then married to a rival mob boss before going clinically insane or the person who needs the most medical attention, Lucky, who happens to be a police officer sworn to uphold the laws that Jason breaks. Now, as my wife and I are on the edge of our seats the screen goes blank, the corny music plays and then we see those notorious words “Special Report”!

The anchorman, Biff, apologizes for interrupting with his smug smile and introduces the sportscaster Chip “The Meat” Hayes. “The Sportscaster”!? I ask out loud. My wife, her jaw actually lying on the floor, is even taken aback by this one. Chip reports that the local professional football team has continued the suspension of its disgruntled star player. Yes, continued! The whole world knew he was suspended indefinitely for several days now but they wanted to let us know he is still suspended! We have no clue who Jason selected to save first nor whether he was able to save anyone due to his own medical condition – which is not pregnancy – and that is why we are sitting here watching television in the first place. But now we know that the football team’s star player is still suspended. Since we were also subjected to two press conferences we also know why the coach continued the suspension and that the player is now sorry about it. Not one of the reporters asked about Jason. By the time the special report was over the show was as well.

My poor wife, for whom I felt more sorrow than me looked very distraught. She walked over to the window and looked out for a moment and then flinched. Concerned, I said “Hon, are you alright”? She replied “I’m fine, but Reggie is stuck up in our tree”! Startled I asked “What should we do”? to which she exclaimed “Alert the media”!