This is good s***
This is good s***
This? Not so much.
I think The Real Housewives of New Jersey just gave me the munchies.
You know when you were younger and could actually stay up late enough to see what the next Today’s Special Value on QVC would be at midnight? Hopefully you were actually out clubbing or participating in some random acts of debauchery and not sitting on speed dial for the newest color of those shiny plastic containers that never spill when you drop them. But regardless, back then you could party all night and the only after effects were a craving for cold pizza or IHOP pancakes, and maybe some bad hair the next morning. Now I just watch TV and I’m hungry. Or at least when I watch Bravo TV.
It was Reefer Madness meets The Sopranos meets Animal House meets Star Wars this week.
Even my TV smelled like booze, smoke and Nordstrom cologne by the time the ending credits were rolling. I’ve given up on trying to figure out how much of a mess these Housewives will be each week. I just go to bed praying to the Gods of Reality TV that the next episode be just as sloppy as the week before, and so far the Divine Andy Cohen has not let me down.
We started out with a little normalcy as Caroline’s two boys, who are pretty interchangeable on screen, continued to try and figure out how to morph into Big Boys while still remaining within earshot of their Mother. So far they have managed to jump the electric fence and get their own apartment together, and now they are going into business together. In their dead grandparents’ home, no less, which has been gutted and filled with IKEA desks and is suddenly a new Start Up Venture Company.
Apparently to get your business party started you just need a couple of desks lined up like beds in a freshman dorm, a few more Italian buddies from Central Casting who all look alike and your clip art logo on a piece of fax paper stapled to a bulletin board. Why didn’t anyone tell me it was this easy to get rich? Would have saved me alot of time folding GAP jeans, thank you very much.
But the partying really got in gear when Kathy took her goggle wearing husband out for his non-surprise birthday party. To celebrate his token only non-Italian heritage, Kathy brought the gang together for some Syrian food, belly dancing and enough hookah weed to smoke out Bin Laden. (Yes, I know they found him already. CNN is only one station away from Bravo. Der.)
Kathy’s sister made another random appearance. This time dressed as a Rhythm Nation Dancer. Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty.
After spending all her face time in the last two episodes making sure that both her son and daughter stayed Disney pure until they were married, did anyone find it a little odd that Kathy had both her kids hanging out at the party while everyone else was sucking off the hookah hose? I’m going to assume that The Aladdin Belly Bar & Head Shop doesn’t have a kids’ table or those menus that come with crayons, and it’s well documented that second hand Arabian Nights garden hose smoke can really mess up a 14 year old.
I’m pretty sure I saw Kathy’s boy sitting on the floor trying to make the carpet fly by the end of the night. Ali Baba Ali Bimbo. It’s a Whole New World, sweetie.
Then we scooted to a quick scene with Caroline’s kinda sorta normal daughter launching her cosmetics line at a tiny little salon, and passing out the t-shirts that Bratzilla Ashley (…who now goes by the name Ashlee, like that suddenly makes her snot nosed spoiled girl resume look any better?) had designed. THAT was what we wasted two episodes of screen time on girls? That little cartoon? The stoned kid on the Arabian carpet could have whipped up something better if that restaurant had crayons. The thing looked like a t-shirt that someone tried on, got make-up all over when she pulled it off, decided she didn’t want it and then stuck it back on the rack for the next unsuspecting fool.
Seriously?
I would have dwelled on that one for awhile longer, if I wasn’t suddenly distracted by Teresa grocery shopping. Yes. Grocery Shopping. In a grocery store.
That alone was enough to get my attention, but the addition of her girls, complete with their matching outfits and matching names, was the cherry on top. It’s bad enough when they run screaming through the halls of Casa de Giudice…possibly enjoying the time they have left there before foreclosure notes or Child Services show up, whichever comes first… but when they terrorize a Kroger’s, well that is just something that needs to be seen and checked off your bucket list.
Like all good shoppers, Teresa had left her plastic snap coupon wallet at home but did manage to bring her blinged up iPhone and fur coat, and enough sugar to keep the girls in complete spazz mode as soon as they hit the produce aisle. If I was that minimum wage 16 year old kid who had to pick up all that frozen food and bruised fruit that Hurricanes Manola and Geniolipop (whatever…pick a name.) left in their paths I would turn in my pricing sticker gun and head to Burger King asap.
It was especially appetizing to see one of the girls sit her entitled butt in the prepared salad cooler. They took full advantage of Teresa needing to call her Jo Bro (not the cool RadioDisney one) and invite him to her strip mall book signing. Multi tasking is not Teresa’s thing, so the girls were free to rub their designer backsides all over any cellophane they could find. I’m thinking they were practicing for when they climb out the window and are never seen or heard from again.
They finished off the family drama with Teresa’s book signing. She was taking the Sharpie to copies of her first cookbook, while promoting her second at some rinky dink one employee book store. She busted out another fur coat for the evening, and another inappropriately too short skirt considering that she was going to be sitting down the entire time facing a line of strip mall shoppers.
I see Paris…I see France…
The book to customer ratio was a little off too, since the store was empty most of the time.
Jo Bro and his wife finally showed, at about the same time that the old man at the register was getting ready to start counting change and pulling out that rolling sweeper vacuum thing that lets you go where there are no outlets. There was nobody in the hizzle, and it was getting close to closing time so they needed to wrap this up.
Of course it turned into big family drama, because Teresa’s Jabba the Hut greaser husband had been texting smack to Jo Bro threatening to break his neck and get all Guido on his a** if he went to the book signing. Dude. One, she needs the sales. You remember last week’s bankruptcy meeting, right? And two…who big bad bully texts anymore, except that oddball Simon from that Housewives show down the street? I mean, really. Grow a pair.
Teresa figured that sitting in the middle of the children’s book section was as good a place as any to get Jo Bro all worked up, which got her worked up, which got Melissa worked up. Which thankfully at least resulted in 10 book sales. Ka-ching. Call the lawyer and call it a night, the roads are getting icy.
By the time Teresa got home, Jabba G. was half in the bag, having been swilling wine all night with a whole bunch of people I don’t remember seeing around much. He was wrecked.
Long story short he got all Italian Alpha Male on Teresa, dissed her family, tried to show his girls how to do some odd Action Hero tuck and roll on her gym mat, chipped his tooth, had more wine and then repeated everything except the gym mat part until he was slurring his words.
Dude’s gonna be hungry in the morning.
