I’ve been watching the Alan and Monica story and I’ve withheld comment for a    while just to see how it would unfold.  I’m a pretty open-minded person and I have had children of my own at various ages (me, not jus them).  I had my first three when I was young and had lots of energy and I had my last three when I was considerably older and had lots of patience.  Mind you, I was not as old as Monica.  She’s more around my mother’s age.  Anyway, I have compiled my top ten reasons why Alan and Monica should NOT have a baby:

10)      They both having thriving professions that in no way allow time to provide care for a newborn in the style their fantasies are suggesting.  They’re thinking about baby powder and baby food commercials, not colic at 2am with a 6am surgery.   Their idea of nurturing a child is a nanny instead of boarding schools and a weekly baseball passing back and forth between them.  I will guarantee that if they do have a baby, they will fast fall headfirst into reality and suffer the anguish of fantasies dying. 

9)       Leticia already has a job and there are no other nannies in Port Charles.

8)       If Alan can’t run, he can’t chase a toddler on a mission.  I was just now watching the scene (Monday, August 21, 2000) where he and Monica were ripping each other’s clothes off and, frankly, the guy is as big as a house.  A two-year-old will destroy him.

7)       There’s a drunk in the house.  Even if he doesn’t live there, he frequents there. ‘Nuff said.

6)       In my opinion, Alan needs to be a bit further into his recovery before he takes on additional passengers.  I don’t think he should even have a pet.

5)       That stairway…it’s a baby-killer. 

4)       They’re doing it for all the wrong reasons.  This isn’t about wanting a baby and all that a baby entails.  It’s about two people clawing wildly to hold onto a time in their life that is slipping away like a little greased pig.  If their reproductive years were equated to a night at a bar, then it’s the 2am call and they are frantically looking around the room trying to make eye contact with anyone who’s willing.  I think it’s just dead wrong that they are using the life of this little baby as a guinea pig to prove that they aren’t the same rotten people they were when AJ and Jason were growing up.  All the while, they are bickering a and accusing and screaming and ranting about who’s sleeping with whom and who was right and who was wrong and how can one upstage the other.  Oh yeah…THEY need to be responsible for bringing up a child.  They couldn’t be trusted to bring up the trash.

3)       Their evil, nutty, nasty children.  Yes, I said plural, ‘children.’  The most obvious is AJ, of course, but that’s an easy shot.  He’s needy and whiney and vindictive and shiftless and refuses to be accountable for anything.  A little less offensive is Emily, who doesn’t even have their blood in her, but under their influence, has turned from a wide-eyed, grass-roots, beatific wonderkin to a bratty, defiant monica-in-training with a phenomenal penchant for finding trouble.  Many would say that Jason, dear Jason, is their saving grace, but if you think about it, wasn’t Jason just a little bit *too* good, both before and after the accident?  Sort of creepy-good?  As Ned pointed out this week, perhaps the accident set him free.   

2)       Anyone who would think about bringing a child, any child, to live in that         bedlam that they call a home (and I use the word so loosely, it rattles) should be on Kevin Collins’ yackity couch, STAT.   

1)      Y’know what?  They are just too damned old.  They’d be in their seventies by the time the kid in of legal age and that is just too damned old.  Monica is a cancer survivor, which leaves her more susceptible for a recurrence.  Alan is in poor health and looks like a heart attack waiting to happen.  Let’s think of the kid and not ourselves, shall we?

I also would like to add, with some dismay, that two people who were once talented and vibrant actors have been somehow reduced to the level of bad vaudeville performances.  When they are on screen, I instantly see the words on the script and lose the façade that I’m watching *real* people.  Two characters that were once textured and interesting have been turned into bland, predictable, two-dimensional cardboard cutouts.  This has become glaringly apparent as they have been moved further forward on the stovetop.  Blech.

Other bits and pieces:  I loved Bobbie’s talk with Hannah.  I was beginning to think it was impossible for me to say any derivative of the word “love” in regard to Bobbie since all I seem to love about her is her absence.  In that scene, she was gentle, firm, caring and convincing.  Hannah, on the other hand, was dumber than “a” rock, much less a box or rocks.  “Oh, I’m just his friend.”  *bat*bat*bat*   “No one else cares about him.”  *bat*bat*bat*  What an idiot.

Hearing Bobbie bathering the same old sing-song, “I’m going to tell Sonn-nnny.  I’m going to tell Sonn-nnnny” to Carly every five minutes is getting extremely old.  Hasn’t she told Sonny enough to last a LIFETIME?

I loved Emily’s rant at Lucky.  I was beginning to think it was impossible for me to say any derivative of the work “love” in regard to Emily since all I seem to love about her is her absence.  In that scene, she was gentle, firm, caring and convincing.  Lucky, on the other hand, was dumber than “a” rock, much less a box of rocks.  “They belong together.”  *blink*blink*blink*  “Could I be, um, like, brainwashed or something?”  *blink*blink*blink*  What an idiot. 

Wow.  De’ja vu all over again.

That feisty little Gia is turning out to be quite the little yotch, eh?  As in be-yotch.  She put the smack down, calling the fab five a bunch of losers, then stuffing her nose in the air even after they warned her about the murderer who was most likely planning his stalking of her that very moment.  I don’t think we need many additional clues to figure out that the nubile Nikolas is on the verge of being busted right out of his icy loneliness and is well on his way to getting a little drink of chocolate mocha.  At least he was born in the same century as this one.

So tell me, am I seeing a glimpse of the old, not so cuddly or starry-eyed, Elizabeth emerging?  She has always been there ready to snap Carly’s head off when provoked or whip Nikolas back to the doghouse, but now it seems Lucky has finally pushed the right button get her console to light up.

Am I the only one worried about Sonny?  It’s not Carly that bugs me.  I think that’s a situation he can probably handle and enjoy handling.  He likes a little challenge and I really do think that he appreciates the fact she’s a damaged as is he.  He’s had so many life lessons in the past few years and they have put him in touch with all the ways that he is a broken person.  I think that maybe being with someone who is equally as screwed up levels the playing field and makes him feel safe.  Plus, she brings Michael along in the package and that fills a void in his life.  Nah, I’m not thinking Carly.  It’s Benny who has me bothered.  He seems to be under the impression (and has been swimming in that impression since Sonny took back his territory) that he has a voice and is the one running things.  Nine times out of ten, if Sonny makes a decision, Benny is jumping on it immediately, on the phone or in person, yammering and warning and complaining and griping about it.  If this was Don Corleon, Benny’d be sleepin’ wit d’fishes, y’know what I’m sayin’?  But fuhgetabout it!  We’re talkin’ Sonny from Port Charles, here, and he don’ have no trouble takin’ lip from da help, y’know?  I’m watchin’ thinkin’ maybe he’s gonna pop him any minute, see, and still dis maroon keeps his jaws flappin’, blah, blah, blah and I’m wonderin’, “Hey, Sonny?  When’s dis guy gonna give you some respect, you know?  What’s it sayin’ to da boys when dis ol’ man’s takin’ you to task for the least little movement?”  I’m thinkin’, “Hey, Sonny?  You gonna next be askin’ Benny before you go do your business in th’ john TOO?”  I’m thinkin’ that my sainted MOTHER, fer cryin’ out loud, could handle dis idiot better than the King of Port Charles! 

Sorry.  I waxed bad movie for a minute there.

I had to laugh at Carly’s getup this week.  Judging from the fact that if Bobbie been wearing the same thing, we would barely have noticed, I’d have to say that Carly had to look no further than Mama’s closet for her clever hooker disguise.

See ya next week, my friends.