A few months ago, I decided to go freelance. Not trying to be all “I QUIT MY DAY JOB TO BE AN ARTISTE, BUT IT’S ACTUALLY WAY HARDER THAN WORKING, GUYS” here. It’s more like I saw people charging hourly and calling their cats their colleagues and I wanted in on that racket. Who knows if it will be forever, but I’m 28 and I don’t have any babies (read “babies” in the voice of Helena from Orphan Black please) so I decided to give it a shot.

I still do the same type of work, and am somehow just as unproductive in my personal creative life, but I do watch daytime TV a lot more than I used to. One of the first things I did after quitting my job was drive to my parents’ house to watch Live! with Kelly and Michael with my recently-retired mom. Watching Regis & Kelly used to be our summer jam. We’d sit in our pjs with our cats on our laps, eating cereal and talking about how Kelly gets those ripped yet tiny arms.

I still work and go places during the day now that I’m freelance, but I almost always catch at least an hour of morning TV. I thought I would write an update for those of you who work 9-5 and wonder what kind of antics you’re missing while in morning status meetings or whatever you do.

1.Kelly Is Co-Hostless and Jamal from Empire is on a Lot

In case you missed the many headlines, Michael Strahan bailed from the best morning show ever to go to Good Morning America for unknown reasons. Kelly is super pissed and has made that known. One of her favorite co-hosts is Jussie Smollet, aka Jamal from Empire. He seems to really enjoy being on this show and maybe could become her permanent co-host if Empire ever went away. That doesn’t seem likely though, so who knows!

2. DJ from Full House is on The View

Did you know this? I feel like you didn’t. Her name is Candace Cameron-Bure and she is in great shape and is also extremely annoying. You knew Raven Simone was on The View though right?

3. Daytime TV Ads are Really Weird

The main ads I see are for the following:

-Cremation Society of Minnesota. Have you created a cremation plan yet? Everyone is doing it.

-Something called “The Mona Lisa Touch.” This when a lady doctor touches you with a wand down there to treat vaginal dryness.

-Hillary Clinton.

-Dentures. The dentures ad is extremely odd. It features a man who is maybe 60 or so who loses his dentures and is in a real tough spot. He needs them ASAP, but we don’t get to know why yet. Luckily, he goes to this dentures place, who make him some new ones in 5 days. (Apparently this is fast? If I was missing my hypothetical dentures, I think I would want them a lot faster than that. [I have thought about this too much.]) He gets his dentures and then we learn what he needed them for: He’s in a hot dog eating contest. Thanks to his new dentures, he eats “the most hot dogs in history.” This whole tale is told through song.

4. The Ladies on The View Will Pop Your Liberal Bubble

One day they spent about 20 minutes reiterating that if kids do yoga in school, they should be able to do Catholic prayers too. They were also extremely mad about Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance. Now if I want to know why people are mad about something that seems good and/or harmless, I just watch The View.

5. Every Show is Trying to Be Like Jimmy Fallon

Kelly Ripa and her inherited Live! franchise has stayed blissfully the same since I was in high school. She’s still really short and hyper and Travel Trivia is still boring. But now she does a lot more goofy things like dress up and play weird games in an attempt to “go viral” like those late night guys and their crazy antics. This feels kind of stressful to watch so early in the morning, and I don’t think that many of these antics actually go viral. Let’s let Kelly get back to chillaxing, please.

If you work 9-5, you’re probably not missing much, other than seeing stars of Marvel movies promoting said movies. But next time you have a sick day, hopefully you’ll know what to expect from your TV friends.

–Becky Lang