It really is a wonder any of us grew up normally at all...

So today I was chatting with some of my fellow General Hospital watchers online and (as usual) we were mocking one of the storylines. You see there's this woman - Laura (of "Luke & Laura" fame) who has this weird Soap-Opera-only disease which puts her into this kind of permanent fog. She sits in a rocking chair in the mental institution and just stares into space. This has been going on for quite some time and the condition is supposedly permanent. But GH was fortunate enough to get the wonderful Genie Francis back for a couple of weeks during Sweeps to play Laura (a role she famously originated). So the current storyline has her daughter, Lulu, also in the mental institution (right across the hall from her as a matter of fact) because she's supposedly falling victim to the same made-up disease as her mother, Laura (I won't even go into why this is all kinds of stupid and ridiculous based on the explanation we were given of the made-up disease when it first came to light that Laura had it). Anyway, Lulu is losing her marbles because she feels guilty over killing her ex-boyfriend and sometime-stalker Logan with an ax. The whole storyline is even more ridiculous than it sounds & the only thing that would redeem it would be if Lulu winds up being executed for the murder & I never have to hear her yappy voice again. But I digress...

So there is Lulu in the nuthouse with her mom across the way - and lo and behold!! - Laura comes out of her fog (or whatever it's called) and comforts Lulu & tells her it's not her fault, etc. So this is great right? But wait - after a couple of days of this, a few of us noticed that Lulu was the only one who ever saw Laura awake. And Laura asked her to keep it a secret - until she knew for sure the waking up thing was permanent. Thus began an endless shuffle of people in and out of the nuthouse to see Lulu who somehow managed to "just miss" seeing Laura up and about.

So this brought up how traumatic the whole Snuffalufugus storyline was to all of us who grew up on the old school Sesame Street. (For those not born in the sixties/seventies, Big Bird used to be the only one who could see Snuffalufugus - everyone else would "just miss" him every single time and Big Bird would get all frustrated and mad that they didn't believe him.) I can't tell you how many times I would sit there holding my breath & hoping and praying that THIS time someone would see him & believe Big Bird. But it never happened. At least while I was watching. I'm told that somewhere in the mid-eighties they changed this up & everyone was friends with Snuff, but until then Big Bird was on his own.

So at some point during this discussion, someone mentioned that the OG Sesame Street was available on DVD now but - wait for it - they have a sticker on them saying that they are not appropriate for young children. Huh - what?

So I did a little research and it turns out this is true - among the many problems are Cookie Monster being obese & smoking a pipe during the Monsterpiece Theatre skits, the Snuffalufagus skits get children thinking that adults won't believe them if they tell them the truth, little Sally going home with Gordon to have cookies and milk - when he was a stranger (!), Oscar's apparently undiagnosed depression & anger issues, and heaven only knows what other kinds of trauma.

Just add this to the list of one more thing that our irresponsible parents inflicted on us in their abusive child-rearing ignorance. I don't know about you but my sister and I had a horrible childhood - We drank water from the hose; rode in the "way back" of station wagons - without seat belts; there were no child-proof caps on things in our house; there was lead paint in our apartment in the Bronx; we rode our bikes without helmets and skated without knee or elbow pads; we played dodgeball and SHIT did that ball hurt; we played outside and got FILTHY; we were sent outside to play in the morning and weren't allowed back in the house except to go to the bathroom or for lunch until mom called us for dinner; we played sports and our teams lost & we didn't get any trophies just for participating. Really it is amazing that we are all alive to talk about it.