Quit While You're Ahead

I did a despicable thing last weekend. I watched "Sex and the City."

If I were Catholic, I'd be camped out in the confessional right about now. And not because of the sex.

Am I the only woman left standing who recognizes this series for the piece of airbrushed shit that it is? Am I supposed to care about these women and their handbags? Who the fuck thought up this narrative? Why aren't Manhattanites massing in the streets in protest?

It's mind-numbing.

My daughter -- who is walking around the house with walking pneumonia at one-in-the-afternoon on a school day due to walking around in flipflops in November, but let's not go there -- stumbled across "Sex and the City" reruns on Fox 21 a few weeks back and has added it to her Must-See-TV alongside "Ugly Betty" and "Desperate Housewives."

I can't believe I'm the kind of mother who lets her 12-year-old daughter watch this deplorable shit. Choose your battles, and all that, I just get tired of arguing. I'm so tired of arguing I owe the Sleep Bank seven years unpaid interest. At least "Housewives" doesn't take itself seriously. Not so with "Sex," which my daughter thought I should watch at least once on account of my having the same name as the main character.

Can I sue for libel? Slander? If not, I'm going back to my given name: Asshole.

It was the full-length movie version of "Sex and the City" that I watched. About halfway through, I turned the sound off to see if this might improve things. Not. There were still those handbags, and all that inane giggling. Interspersed with bouts of crocodile tears to suggest balance. Life is difficult, then there's Botox.

The nude scenes stood out like a...well, you get the point. Here's this Pollyanna storyline punctuated with long naked glimpses of anonymous glistening gym rats athletically faking orgasm. It just didn't flow. The Pollyannas, of course, are never shown naked, being genitally-challenged, like Barbie.

I was ten when Barbie was born. She appeared suddenly, miraculously, from the mind of God. Like Jesus. My sister and I each had our own Barbie -- the ponytailed blonde, the bouffant brunette -- and would painstakingly dress them in the latest fashion, then switch heads when we wanted to change outfits.

I can think of a few women I'd like to switch heads with. I'm sure my husband could, too.

Then along came Ken, and life was never the same. The blonde and the brunette fought over that dickless wonder for the rest of their fashion-centric days, until heads had been switched so often they started nodding off. Isn't it telling that Ken's head wasn't removable? Believe me, we tried.

Why we didn't just get another Ken is beyond me. But then I suppose the passion and drama would've gone out of it. With a Ken for each Barbie, where's the conflict? Next thing you know you're playing doubles tennis and living in side-by-side Dreamhouses.

Whatever became of that Barbie of mine?

She'd be worth quite a bit now, being the original, with her little black-and-white stripe swimsuit and her cotton candy hair. Though she had a less than perfect time of it -- all that fighting over Ken -- she may not have held up too well. Unlike her counterparts in "Sex and the City," who walk through life in designer shoes and go through men like tampons and always manage to find a taxi and never, but never, lose their heads.