Last week I invited readers of this column to email me and choose among All My Children’s David and Anna, General Hospital’s Lucky and Summer, and Port Charles’ Jack and Tess. I’ll be honest with you — I really thought I had stacked the deck. You know, like when a magician asks you to pick a card, any card, but knows full well which one he’s leading you to? I thought I had set up the choices so that most of you would write to me and clamor for David and Anna, the couple I actually wanted to write about.

But, no! You fooled me!

Don’t worry — it wasn’t Summer and Lucky. They managed two lousy votes, and one of those was from Soapboy, who has ulterior motives. If I had a song ready for them, I would do it just for you, Soapboy, and let the real votes be damned. Sadly, Summer and Lucky don’t make me feel like singing. The other “Sucky” vote came from my dear insomniac pen pal Sandra L., who really didn’t want to vote for Summer and Lucky, just express her shock and dismay that I would even think about writing about those two. Sorry, Sandra. You mentioned them. It counts as a vote. They’re hard up.

A respectable number of people did ask for David and Anna, but the real shocker was when all those Jack and Tess votes poured in. Who knew? Jack and Tess?

I’m not sure if it’s because you really like them or you just want them to get the Queen’s special skewering. Whatever your reasoning, you voted. And you get what you pay for. Or in this case, don’t pay for. But if you should want to send in a few shekls, a sou or two, to help fund the Royal Treasury, feel free. I feel as if I’m earning it, writing about Jack and Tess and all.

So here we go. Jack the wannabe Vampire Slayer and Tess the wannabe Nell.

No DNA like other women

Ah, yes. In the immortal words of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Tess is much too young.

I can hear the Jack and Tess supporters screaming already that she’s plenty old enough. I have no clue how you count the rings on someone with no DNA, but mentally, she seems about, well, nine. I was thinking twelve originally, but when I think about Tess in her little muslin shift, clutching her fuzzy wuzzy,  making childlike noises and fixing her blank gaze on the perplexing world around her... I’ll stick with nine.

Jack, dear, a nine-year-old isn’t just too young for you. It’s criminal. It’s sick. It’s child abuse. Yes, she’s sweet and pretty and her magic healing powers are just spiffy. Yes, she has the body of a 20-something. Yes, she probably does need someone to protect her, since her dad (does Kevin count as her dad? The metaphysical questions here keep freaking me out.) wants to get rid of her so her alter ego — the daughter he knows is his daughter — can come back, and Caleb the Big Vamp wants to reunite with Livvie, that alter ego, and it isn’t clear yet whether that means banishing Tess or just putting the Livvie/Tess pieces back together.

But that doesn’t change who she is inside. Besides, she looks exactly like a woman who was horrible and evil to Jack, she speaks in monosyllables, he knows very well she’s only half a person, and he treats her like the nine-year-old I think she is. Why would a man want to marry a baby doll? (Well, a man other than Michael Jackson or Jerry Lee Lewis, I mean.) And whoever heard of a groom giving his bride a stuffed animal for a wedding gift?

Let me pause for a moment here. I almost delayed this column for a week because I couldn’t actually recall if Jack gave her a teddy bear or a doll. I remember being appalled because it was something you leave for your child under the Christmas tree, not something you give your mature partner in love, but I’m blanking on what it was. So if it was a doll or a Cabbage Patch Kid and not a teddy, which is the image my overworked brain is feeding me, I hope you will forgive the inaccuracy just this once.

It may seem odd that this antipathy for the teddy comes from a woman with an entire palace vault devoted to her stuffed animal collection. I don’t care. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. I still say that Teddy Ruxpin is still not an appropriate wedding gift between bride and groom if you want me to think they share a real, deep, abiding love, and not some bizarre Daddy Dearest thing that grosses me out before I even start to think about it. Aside from Jack’s anger and control issues, the idea that he would marry and have sex with someone who acts so naïve and childlike pushes all my buttons. What does it say about him that he would want to? Jack, Jack. Get some help, will you? Grow up! Find a woman, not a girl.

I realize there is an argument that Tess represents the good side of Livvie and Jack is a good guy and handing her over to Caleb is saying evil wins. Okay, I heard the argument. But  I don’t think Tess belongs with anybody until she at least takes a GED and proves to me she’s operating above the 4th grade level.

So that’s my final word on Jack and Tess. Squickfest. I can’t bear to rate their heat level. It’s just wrong, wrong, wrong to even think about “heat” and the two of them in the same sentence.

Phew. Aren’t we all glad we got that over with and never have to speak of them again?

Next week...  Who will take a ride through the Tunnel of Love? I’m not asking you guys again. I’m still mad at you for giving me Jack and Tess (even though I know very well it’s my own fault for offering them as a choice. Harrumph. Repeat after me — whatever it is, it’s never the Queen’s fault.)

So, as for next week’s couple, I guess you’ll just have to wait and see... Although flattery and outrageous compliments, maybe even a small, judiciously applied gift here and there, can work, too. Hit me with your best shot!

 Comments/feedback?
Email me  QueenofHearts@soaptownusa.com