How Would Cedar Rapids Be Presented in a Soap Opera?

Have you ever wondered how Cedar Rapids would be portrayed in a soap opera? Probably not. Actually, some might say it already is one. But here's my version of it.

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Like the smell of Crunch Berries through the downtown air...so are the days of Cedar Rapidians' lives...

On our last episode, 17-year-old Dennis received a traffic camera ticket. "I'm not paying this, even the mayor said they don't enforce these things!," Dennis says, ripping up the citation while blankly and angrily gazing into the air.

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Meanwhile, Dennis' parents, Phylicia and James sit in their living room, sipping wine and pining for a casino. "Why must we drive all the way to Riverside if we want to spend our inadequate disposable income by dropping it into a slot machine?" (Dramatically staring at each other over suspenseful music).

Their youngest daughter, Marie, overhearing the conversation, enters the room, holding a stack of books checked out from the immaculate but often ridiculed downtown library, pointing a chilling gaze their way..."because we need a waterpark instead!!!"

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Their older daughter, Jessica, walks in, seeing everyone sitting around and asks,  "so like, ohmigod, like what is going on?"

James answers: "Nothing! Just debating why there is so little to do in this town!"

(Extended blank stare from Jessica, who has just returned home from seeing Boyz II Men and En Vogue live at the McGrath Amphitheatre. She rolls her eyes, grabs her cell phone to text her bestie Melissa, who she just spent the last three hours with at the concert, and squeals with delight as Melissa replies. They begin texting about the Alan Jackson and Bret Michaels concerts they will be attending, both in the following few weeks, and Jessica then races upstairs to her bedroom).

Stay tuned for our next episode, as popular local radio personalities Jaymz Larson and Eric Stone host a remote broadcast at a local sports bar, where things quickly go dangerously awry for all involved.

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