I have a confession to make.

I love Boy Meets World.

I do.

I have ever since it first came on, way back in the Stone Age of the 1990's.

I don't know what it is about this show - maybe it's that the characters were (roughly) the same age I was. Maybe it was trying to figure out just what dumb thing was going to come out of Eric's mouth next. I just don't know.

Of course, my favorite episodes are the later ones, when they're in college and Corey and Topanga get married and all that. Like I said, I was going through roughly the same thing at roughly the same time.

They've been showing old episodes on ABC Family in the mornings, and I watch them as I'm getting ready for work.

There's just one thing that has bothered me for a great while.

At what point did Topanga quit being a hippy-chick-earth-child and start being more normal?

It seems like she went from crimped-hair outcast who called her parents by their first name and worried about the Earth weeping for people who weren't true to themselves, to a straight-haired girl who was more concerned with whether or not she was up on all the latest styles.

Huh?

Maybe I missed a few episodes when I was in college. There were many nights I spent alone in the TV lobby of my dorm, downing entire bags of salt and vinegar potato chips or order of Pizza Hut hotwings. I watched lots of whatever-ABC-was-calling-their-Friday-night-lineup-at-the-time.

Then, my friends and I discovered the $1 movies in Athens and the $1.50 movies in Anderson, and we went there every weekend. So, I left the TV lobby to other losers who hadn't discovered the cheap thrill of seedy bargain theaters.

Can anyone help me? I mean, this morning was a very, very old episode, and it just got me thinking: What the heck happened to Topanga?