Spoilers are the devil's work!

Preface: Here’s the thing you should know before reading this – I have the kind of cold that has rendered my brain incapable of all but the simplest functions. I share this with you because below is a post on a subject I’m starting to think I may have written about once already but if I did I can’t seem to find any evidence of it. So this is my preemptory attempt to apologize for redundancy. Or you could just think of the earlier post – if it does indeed exist – as a spoiler for this one. In any case, my apologies in advance if I have in fact redundancied (new word alert!) myself…

Let’s face it, being as generally awesome as we are, nerdy women have very few vices. Our indulgences veer toward the literary – perhaps we have purchased too many books and can no longer sleep laying down in our apartments? Or toward that of a passionate collector except instead of a $300 pair of shoes, we just bought the Ultimate Superior Never to Be Improved Upon Until Next Year’s Holiday Season Box Set of “The West Wing.” Or maybe, just maybe, this is the year we realize we’ve purchased too much yarn. Whatever the specifics, our vices, in general, are fairly innocuous.

Except for one – a vice so hideous, so malevolent and self-destructive that it is only discussed with vertical ellipses and helpful black bars covering the text. Yes, I’m speaking of course about spoilers.

I am a recovering spoiler whore. I spent most of the late 1990s trolling the Buffy Cross and Stake message boards in search of spoiler nuggets, large or small. After discovering the AOL message boards in the early 1990s, I pretty much knew the content of every X-Files episode weeks before it aired. Same goes for “The West Wing.” As much as this advanced knowledge pretty much ruined every single surprise ever concocted for any of these series, I kept at it. Why? Because of summer and the soul-sucking abyss known as “no new episodes.” I was weak, and any news, or even fake news, helped tide me over, like finding a cactus in a four-month long desert named Hiatus.

There was one show for which I remained religiously anti-spoiler: “Lost.” I have never, ever peaked at a “Lost” spoiler because the strength of that show is based almost exclusively on its ability to shock the hell out of you. Plus, it’s a show that I like a lot but am not obsessively passionate about. So basically, it was like not eating an entire key lime pie when your favorite kind of pie is really pumpkin: gluttony is easily avoided in those instances.

But now it’s been six months since the last new episode of “Battlestar” aired and there’s still three more to go. I have tried very, very hard to remain spoiler-free. Last year, when it was revealed who four of the final five were, all I could think was, “Wow, I’m so glad I didn’t know that ahead of time.” And now, RIGHT NOW, there are new posts in the Television Without Pity spoiler folder for BSG and I am like a fox in a hen house filled with hens who are all like, “C’mon, it’s fine. Just eat us.” And I don’t even like chicken!

I got spoiled for the big revelation at the end of BSG’s last season by accident and it totally ruined it for me. And yet…would it really be so bad if I just picked up one little nugget of information about this year? Half my brain says, “YES, YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER IDIOT,” but the other half is pushing a calendar under my nose saying, “You’re getting nothing for 90 more days. You’re never going to make it. Just look now and maybe you’ll forget it by January.” And this is how I accidentally find out that Boxey is the fifth cylon. (Not a real spoiler.)

I’m holding on for right now. One day at a time, as my sponsor tells me. I try to avoid TWOP and it’s tempting, beautiful, information-filled spoiler folder. I don’t know if I’ll last but damn it, I’m going to put up a good fight.

Unless someone has news about Roslin. Then I’m as done as Daniel Baldwin in a roomful of boxed wine.

But enough about me. How do you feel about spoilers?