By Laura MoorePLAY Columnist

I don’t like to cover one subject two weeks in a row. I really believed that when you have a weekly pop culture column, you should be able to come up with enough entertainment minutiae to bullshit about something different each time. Of course, this was before Black Tuesday.

Many of you associate Black Tuesday with that “historically important” day back on October 29, 1929, when the stock market took a little dip-a-roo and we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression. Well history repeated itself on November 7, 2007. We have a new Black Tuesday, except instead of the stock market crashing, Britney Spears filed for divorce from Kevin Federline. Any day now society as we know it will implode and we will once again be steeped in a Great Depression not seen since…the last one. No? Maybe a little depression? OK, at least a minor buzzkill!

Now I admit, this essentially goes against everything I said last week when I blamed K-Fed for ruining Britney and everything we loved about her. I still maintain that for turning a girl I once hated out of sheer jealousy (but whose pop genius I couldn’t ignore) to a girl I pitied because she had fallen so far from grace that Christina Aguilera was actually winning the battle for America’s attention (gross, yo), K-Fed remains a blot on society. But I’ve gotta say, the dissolution of Brit and K-Fed’s sacred union saddens me.

I can’t put my finger on why I’m so bothered by something that was so wrong in the first place. Maybe it’s just that they’re the latest in a flurry of celeb marriages falling apart (Reese and Ryan? Say it ain’t so!). Maybe it’s because without Britney, Kevin will inevitably fade from my pop lexicon leaving me one less person to verbally attack from behind the safetynet of this column. Or maybe it’s because for over two years Britney stood by her man despite ridiculous levels of media scrutiny and assholes (yes, like me) tearing him down at every available opportunity. Yeah, I think it’s that last one – it tugged at my heartstrings.

Britney and Kevin held onto their marriage when everyone was telling her to send him out for a pack of Camels and a 40 and change the locks while he was gone. It’s one thing to tough it out when people are rooting for you to stay together, but Brit and Kev were up against America. Nay, the world, and damnit there was some serious loyalty there. So I may not lose any sleep over knowing Kevin has just lost his number one source of income, but I’ll surely toss and turn a little knowing that if these two crazy kids, who stuck together like Britney’s bare feet on a gas station bathroom floor, can’t make it, then the future of celebrity relationships, and dare I say it, love in general, is bleak.

Medill senior Laura Moore is the PLAY pop culture columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].