Ain't Too Proud to Beg (You to Watch Scum on TV)

It has come to my attention that some of my readers have not yet met The Real Housewives of New York City.

This is a dire situation I feel obligated to remedy. Not filling you in would be like seeing you standing by the side of the road with a flat tire and just waving as I drove on by. There are oh, SO many reasons why you should check in with these women THIS VERY NIGHT. Here are just a few:

1) This show is wonderfully entertaining, in the way that hearing middle schoolers talk about who is mad at whom can be the most exciting thing in your day. (C'mon -- you know you listen. Manning the student checkout desk is the hottest volunteer commitment at Ben's middle school. I am proud to say I have restrained myself, but then again, I have a communicative carpool.)

2) You will learn that you are actually lucky not to have a vacation home in the Hamptons.

3) No matter how whiny/selfish/immature/tacky/downright mean you've been today, you can go to sleep knowing that there are at least five women who are worse.

TRHNYC follows five "ordinary housewives" -- Alex (pretentious former model with really creepy husband), LuAnn (a humble countess), Ramona (a female wrestler in designer clothes), Jill (the voice you hope never to sit next to on an airplane), and Bethanny (skinny, single, career woman trying desperately to become some sort of wife). These women are "ordinary" in the way that George Clooney is an "ordinary" hunka hunka burning love. They are "housewives" in the way that ... well, they live in houses, and four of them are wives.

Here's how BravoTV's website describes the show:

"The new series features an elite and powerful set of New York socialites as they juggle their careers and home lives with busy calendars packed with charity fund-raising galas, the social whirl of the Hamptons, and interviews for elite private schools. These driven and ambitious women show everyone what it takes to make it in the upper echelon of society, where money and status are an essential way of life."

See what I mean? They're just like you and me!

TRHNYC follows on the heels of several seasons of The Real Housewives of Orange County. Those women mostly appeared to be former Playboy bunnies -- long, platinum blonde hair; basketball boobs wedged into ultra-low cut tops; many, many, many diamonds (so many some had to be cubic zirconias) -- but occasionally they would be pictured nudging a sponge around the kitchen or driving a child somewhere in a Hummer, and some of them seemed sort of sweet, although not to each other.

After the first season, I never let myself officially watch The Real Housewives of Orange County. I proudly told myself I had better, more enriching things to do. Bravo is a veritable treasure chest of reruns, however, and I could roughly keep up by tuning in while I was washing dishes or folding clothes.

I had sworn I wouldn't even start with TRHNYC. But I've seen bits and pieces of every episode through the reruns, and I've decided I just can't stay away. (Unless I can't stay up till 9 Central, in which case I'll have to catch a rerun some afternoon when I'm ironing. Yes, we are a TiVo-less family.)

If people are your favorite thing to watch, refusing to watch this show would be like an art lover going to the Louvre and checking out the bathroom instead of the Mona Lisa, or a geologist skipping the Grand Canyon to take a bus tour to Branson, Missouri. It just wouldn't be right.

So come on, treat yourself -- tune in tonight. And if watching TRHNYC will make you ashamed, do what I'm doing.

Keep the television on PBS until then.