You know what Judy Garland sang, “A foggy day in London town, it had me low, it had me down.” That’s how I felt when the fetid winds of fate blew our sour-pussed heroines across the pond and landed them square in the middle of the good old United Kingdom.
Honestly, I was a little bit nervous about this trip just based on what all the ladies were wearing when they got out of the plane. First of all, we no longer need to wonder where in the world Carmen San Diego is, because her spirit has possessed my sister wife Sonja Tremont Morgan and is making her dress like she’s a spy on the run from INTERPOL. My soon-to-be best friend (and neighbor!) Carole Radziwill was wearing a blue cape and chartreuse driving gloves. It was so daffy that I could say nothing but “Werq!” and wave a finger at her. When everyone arrives in merry olde England, they always take on one of the affectations of the natives. This is a disease known popularly as Madonna Syndrome. Just like Madonna, the Countess was rocking a bad fake British accent and, like Madonna, Carole kept wearing these mysterious driving gloves. Now, I know she doesn’t have withered old pterodactyl claws like Madonna, so why was she doing this? And it wasn’t just one pair. NO! She had the bright green pair and then a black pair when she went to go tell Heather that she is pretty enough to be on TV.
So, the ladies all show up in their traveling costumes and they are just fascinated by the fascinators that are waiting for them upon arrival (except either Sonja or Carole thinks they are called “fasteners” and then they fight about who was right and who was wrong and then they just get over it and move on and it’s every Housewives fight ever boiled down into 30 seconds). See, the hotel has had a surplus of these dainty chapeaux ever since no one took them up on their Royal Wedding Package that came complete with your very own fascinator, a signed portrait of Pippa Middleton’s personal trainer, and tea with that girl who frowned in all the pictures and totally photobombed the wedding. Oh, and you get to eat crumpets shaped like Princess Beatrice’s hat. No one went for it. Now they just leave silly little hats full of feathers and sparkles hoping that stupid Americans will take them home with them and get them out of the damn hotel.
Everyone goes shopping (without hats) and as they’re walking around, they’re looking for a thrift store for Sonja, who doesn’t like to spend any money which is why she has interns and not servants. They end up in Notting Hill, which is Carole’s old neighborhood. They walk by her old flat (that’s what the British call them, you know, flats. No, not the shoes, an apartment.) and Carole starts to tell them the story of when she lived there. “Well, it was just after Anthony, my husband, died and I was going through a very rough time in New York and I came to London for work. While I was in the neighborhood, I somehow found my way into a travel book store where there was this very cute and charming man working there. He was tall and very British and had that sort of floppy hair that you only get if you have made out with one of your bunkmates at Eton. Anyway, he made some recommendations and I flirted, but I was just so guarded. Later I was walking down the street and we ran right into each other. He’s very accident-prone, you know, always stumbling around and bumping into things and getting caught with hookers in his car. So, we run into each other and he spills his orange juice all over my shirt! So we go to his place and he offers to clean me up and I take off my shirt and I’m not wearing a bra (because I never wear a bra) and well, one thing leads to another and we fall in love and then he finds out that I’m like this huge movie star and he doesn’t want to date me and then he does and then he doesn’t and he has this awfully ugly roommate who sort of looks like the little cartoon in that yellow toenail fungus drug commercial. Ugh, he was awful. But yes, we totally fell in love and I lived here in London for a year. And then I dumped him.”
“Wait,” said the Countess. “Isn’t that a Hugh Grant movie?” “Oh no,” said Carole, very seriously. “That all totally happened to me. All of it.”
Meanwhile, back at the Yummie (vomit) Tummie (vomit vomit) International Sales Meeting, Heather Thompson is in a room with three German actors she paid to look like sales associates for her company and the lady who is in charge of the Andorran market (there is one store) sits around poking at the one last danish on the pastry tray while Heather gives out amazing advice like, “Think locally, act globally.” Um, Heather, isn’t their job to think locally and act locally? Isn’t it your job to oversee all their local thought and then do some global thought? Do you really want Dieter, with his square glasses and turtle neck taking over your business and deciding when it’s time for everyone to dance? No. You do not. Here is what you need to tell these bitches: “Sell more underwear and make me rich!” Just shout that at them for like an hour and torture them a little bit and maybe cut off Gunther’s pinkie because he’s not selling enough elastic camisoles in Sweden. That’s how the cartel would do it. Don’t you want to be a cartel? Isn’t that the new American dream?
Then all the ladies have to pay for their free trip to London and they show up at the Yummie Tummie International Retreat and Trust Exercise Demonstration. It’s in the former House of Dior in London and… hold up a second. Wait. Is Sonja Morgan wearing her confessional dress in the outside world? You know the one. It looks sort of like she used a feather duster to clean up the slime at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards and then plastered it to her chest. You know, the one that she is wearing when she talks to the camera in every episode. Oh, no no no no no no, Sonja T. Morgan. You are my favorite, but you are not allowed to wear that dress out in public ever again. It must be retired. I’m surprised you didn’t give it to your intern in a plastic decontamination sac as soon as filming is over and have her burn it in the basement of the parking structure you live next to. That is the decent thing to do. You don’t see Kim Richards walking around wearing that shirt with the bow that looks like it is going to eat and then slowly digest her head like a lamé boa constrictor. You don’t see Alex McCord rewearing the fleshen chains that kept her shackled to her seat in front of the camera. No, those dresses are one time only affairs, because we will see them forever. Just take it into the Mines of Moria and throw it into the dark abyss from whence it came and forget about it forever.
Now, I would never ever ever make my friends go to some boring work dinner with me, even if I did just (get the producers to) pay for them to go to London with me for the weekend and hang out in a penthouse. (Oh, speaking of which, you know how Heather got so excited because she thought that this was Sonja’s first time in a penthouse? What she didn’t hear was that Sonja said, “I’ve never been in Penthouse before,” but she meant the magazine. Oopsie!) Inviting them to attend the Yummie (vomit) Tummie (barf) dinner is sort of like going to your boyfriend’s family reunion: you don’t know anyone there, no one seems to really have any idea who you are, and his aunt’s potato salad smells like feet and Citronella candles. It’s all just awful.
Heather goes around the table and tells everyone they have to stand up and say where they’re from and “why you love Yummie, baby, whoo!” Ok, this, right here, is why I find it impossible to like Heather. Now, I don’t hate Heather like I hate hooded tank tops and sparkly Ugg boots and Alexis Bellino. I just can’t like Heather. She seems like a cool, real person with her chunky glasses that she’s still going to wear even if everyone picks on her. She’s her own person, she’s willing to stand up to Ramona or anyone else who thinks she’s wrong, and she’s friends with Beyoncé. Those are all qualities that I should love. But then she says things like “Why you love Yummie, baby, whoo!” and I just want to cut out her tongue and send it back to the bachelorette party where it was enchanted by whatever evil witch makes her talk like that. Can’t Heather just talk like a human person? This exercise is also why Carole Radziwill and I should be best friends. She just refuses to stand up when she has to participate in this little team building exercise. She doesn’t even want to say what she loves about Yummie (retch) but she does. Still, she refuses to stand up. Oh, Carole, I would have done the same thing. Let’s talk about it over margaritas on the rocks with no salt at Arriba, Arriba where we just sit on 9th Avenue and watch the queens go by and pick on their awful jean cut-offs. I know that’s how we both want to spend a Saturday evening.
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