STRANGER THAN FICTION: DREAMING ABOUT LIFE AS TONY SOPRANO, MAFIA BOSS

"The Sopranos" is violent, sexually graphic and features characters who drop the F-bomb so frequently that you stop noticing.

Having said that, I'm on that show like Tony Soprano on a plate of mussels. And so are my HBO-subscribing friends -- including one who signed up over his cell phone after I described the March 31 episode -- and the 7 million folks who picked the Sopranos over the Oscars two Sundays ago.

In our house, it was no contest.

That's mostly because the show is original. A murderous mobster trying to raise a couple of kids and work out his panic attacks through therapy? Fuggedaboutit. One minute he's having an informant whacked, the next he's discussing his daughter's education.

And there isn't a throwaway character on the show, except for that Jackie Aprile Jr., who is all looks and no talent. Honestly, they could put me in the cast playing a handsome male Italian drug dealer and I'd be more convincing than that guy.

But part of the reason we like "The Sopranos" so much is because we'd all like to be Tony for a day. Or at least have him as a close personal friend.

Think about the problems that would solve. Think of the people in your life who would end up in the witness protection program, if you get my drift.

Take my tax trouble this year.

I'm not sure if Tony even pays taxes. He probably pays some to keep the government at bay, but let's face it, strip clubs, drug dealing and shakedown operations are mostly cash businesses. It's not like you become a made guy and someone hands you a W-4 form to fill out.

But if Tony DID pay taxes, his accountant probably wouldn't accidentally mail them to his former address in Florida despite Tony stopping by to give him the correct address and a new business card.

And his accountant probably would find all kinds of deductions so that Tony wouldn't owe a few thousand dollars but only have a couple of hundred to mail in by Monday's deadline. If he didn't, Tony would walk into the accountant's office with a baseball bat and kindly request that the accountant "take anudda look at da numbas."

And think about the people you work with who'd be sleeping with the fishes if they worked with Tony.

You know that irritating coworker who keeps sitting at your cubicle and dumping all of her personal problems on you when you're trying to get stuff done? The one who never seems to take a breath as she announces: "So me and Darryl were living together and things were going OK until his ex-wife kept dumping her kids off and I said Darryl I didn't move in here to raise a couple of little brats and he said Baby it ain't gonna be this way forever and I said oh yeah. ..."

Tony wouldn't just pretend to get on the phone when she came strolling up. This season, when a stripper kept trying to give him gifts and talk to him about her personal life, he explained that he has friends and he has business associates, and she was in the latter category.

She got the message.

Of course, I'll never do that. The closest I come to acting like a Mafia boss is when I've got PMS.

And I wouldn't want the headaches Tony has. The FBI investigations. The pesky Russian mistresses who don't know when to let go. The certainty that I face eternal damnation for committing all seven deadly sins and then some.

But I can tune in next Sunday and daydream, right?

Heidi Hall is the managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.