My trip back from Thanksgiving was supposed to be a two-hour drive, which turned out to be a four-hour drive, because Los Angeles + holiday weekend = hell on earth. What better use of that time, I thought, than to space out and think about Days? (Okay, there were a lot of better uses, but this is my life and these are my choices.) I don’t even know how I got down this particular rabbit hole, but I started thinking about how the show has cycled through so many different “eras” since I’ve been watching, and I wondered what I’d have thought if you’d, say, shown me an episode from the present day at some point in the past.

Which is basically what this post is. Let’s say it’s 2006 and someone, somehow, has gotten his or her hands on an episode from 2016. What the hell would you be thinking as you watched?

As a refresher, here’s some of the big stuff that was going down in 2006:

James Scott debuted as suave racecar driver EJ Wells, who would later be revealed to be a DiMera.

After being dumped at the altar by Lucas, Sami got back together with Austin, who was carrying on an emotional affair with Carrie, who married Lucas even though she didn’t love him because Sami got Lexie to lie that any child Carrie and Austin conceived would be genetically doomed.

Dr. Alex North, the first husband Marlena had somehow completely forgotten about (and no one like her parents ever told her about), showed up and tried to manipulate her away from John.

Jennifer almost married Frankie, but Jack turned up alive again, and his fatal illness was cured.

Kayla returned to Salem conveniently mere weeks before Steve turned up alive, with amnesia.

Bo and Hope were torn apart after Chelsea accidentally hit Zack with her car, killing him. Hope turned to Patrick Lockhart, while Billie saw yet another opening to throw herself at Bo.

Nick Fallon first appeared as a super-nerd instantly in love with Chelsea.

Belle was married to Philip but lusting after Shawn, who was revealed to be Claire’s true father because they had sex while they were unconscious and didn’t remember, which is pretty much the blueprint for their entire relationship.

Let’s take a glance at that crystal ball, or inside one of Celeste’s wigs, and see how 2016 might look through this lens…

“Wow. Steve and Kayla are still on the show! They must’ve kept them around for this entire decade. How cool. Who’s this Joey kid, though? They don’t have a son — certainly not one who could ever plausibly be 18. At least he isn’t a racecar driver, it seems…”

“Marlena and John seem to be together, and it doesn’t appear that they’re pretending she can still get pregnant, so I guess that’s all good.”

“Jennifer’s living in the Horton house, and her family is sort of the centerpiece of the show, which seems fitting. And it sounds like Alice passed away. How sad! Jack must not be there because he’s presumed dead again and they’ll be reunited at Christmas, yeah? I can’t believe they’re still doing that.”

“There’s a DiMera named Chad? I guess if Abigail married him, they must’ve finally started having Jennifer mention Peter Blake again, on account of how she had quite the experience marrying into the DiMera family and there’s no way she wouldn’t bring that up frequently if her daughter were doing the same. Right?”

“Who is the Daniel person who gets mentioned on literally every episode? He must’ve been very important and a really great man!”

“Apparently Lexie is dead. Are we sure she didn’t just mispronounce herself dead and no one bothered to double-check? Her son grew up to be very handsome, at least.”

“Hope killed Stefano? Good! It should not have taken 30 years for one of these people to figure out that the best solution would just be to shoot him. Wait… what do you mean, he was wheelchair-bound and she just walked into his house ranting and raving and shot him dead? Yikes. Is she a villain now? And why is she canoodling with Rafe from Passions?!”

“That’s Ciara? She was just born! And this actress– oh my god. James E. Reilly must’ve finally done that half-human, half-android storyline he always wanted to do, with Hope’s pregnancy. That’s why she acts like she’s only attempting to emulate human behavior and speech patterns, yeah? Good casting, I must say.”

“Julie just said that Nick is dead. And some girl named Gabi killed him. Boy, I bet all the Hortons hate her! Nick was such a great guy.”

“Lucas is marrying Bonnie? WTF?! Oh, wait, Bonnie’s gone and Judi Evans is Adrienne again. Okay, that’s weird, but I can go with it. But where the hell is Sami? And that EJ guy? They must’ve really taken off if the show had them leave together.”

“I guess this Sonny guy is Justin and Adrienne’s kid, Jackson, and he’s gay, and so is this random half-Japanese guy they say is John’s son. They’re finally allowing gays in Salem? That’s cool. I wonder if they’ll ever let them kiss or have a real storyline.”

“Hold the phone. Maggie is married to Victor? Victor Kiriakis? How in the world could that have happened? Oh my god. Mickey must’ve stayed with Bonnie. Did they leave town together? Crap. Now I guess I have to watch…”

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