Interior Monologue

Do we really want to pay three-ninety five for a tub of cantaloupe chunks? Do it, do it, throw it in the cart! Okay, but normally we get whatever they have on sale in a big bin with flies swarming around it the day before they ship it back to Tehachapi for the pigs. Don't you get it? Everything's different now! We're getting more for ten weeks' work than your average American couple brings down in six years. We're in, babe. Now pick up some nice rawhide bones for the wieners, so what if they do cost fifteen bucks a piece for scraps of freeze-dried Chilean shoe leather?

Hey, let's go pick out some of those stone crabs. And buy the Moet. Yes, the Moet. None of that Chandon crap, now, we've known very well since junior year abroad that "California champagne" is nothing but a déclassé bit of street slang. Why not pick up some of that pricey lemon garlic aioli, too, what's eight bucks and six hundred calories a teaspoon between friends? No, no, we'll make our own. "Gourmet" stuff in snotty jars usually sucks, even if it is from France.

Oh God, they're leading some guy out of Ralph's in handcuffs. He looks like a nice kid, really, a wannabe rock star who’ll strum you "Brown-Eyed Girl" on acoustic guitar for a quarter outside the Hollywood Farmer's Market. Another runaway with another dream from another Red State. Offer to buy whatever he stole, forgiving the fact that his folks voted in Doubleya. Do it! No, no, look the other way. Desperation could very well be contagious. Lord knows we don't want to catch that again. Okay, bitch, now it's too late. Rich people suck. You don't want to be a cheap rich girl like the Queen of England, do you? They say that old crone wouldn't pick up a tab if it bit her in the ass. Who says that? Andrew Morton, Sir Elton John, Mohamed al Fayed. People who know stuff.

Now they're putting the poor kid in a squad car just like the Matchbox kind he used to play with, telling him to watch his head. He's blushing now, visibly humiliated, as if hungry as hell weren't enough. Coming to Hollywood and wanting too much, that was his first mistake. Okay, now you're sad. Seriously, you could cry. There's all kinds of untapped talent itching to hit this town like an oil gusher, and yet, you can practically breathe the spillover vaporizing into the air with the morning smog. Hey, this must be Survivor's Guilt. It's hard to tell when you're Catholic and super in touch with your original sin, but yeah, it's a brand new feeling of shame, the "Why me?" kind. There’s also that little touch of Imposter Complex, as in "Uh-oh. Me?" You don't know how to write a hundred thousand dollar screenplay! Who are you kidding, Miss Fancy Pants? Let's not think about that now. Think about that tomorrow.

But don't forget the huge crate of toilet paper, the good kind that's quilted like a surprise powder puff from the rear. And buy that mother of all tampon boxes, forty bucks worth, the kind with the fancy pink applicators and the scent of a soft ocean breeze. Nothing says wealth and privilege like some gently perfumed privates. Where do they keep the goddamn Jelly Bellies already? Here we go, the big one, the party size. At ten calories a bean including the real fruit juices they're a nutritious, fat-free treat, it says so right on the jar.

Get in the pretend fancy car, wave to the fantasy crowd lining the streets, and ascend to the make believe palace. Now get out the bed tray and the ball peen hammer. Who needs a snooty nutcracker when you've got ten years of pent up hostility to direct at your crabs? Nothing wrong with shellfish and champagne in bed, Liz Taylor probably does it nightly. Music might be a classy touch, something feminist and self-righteous like the Indigo Girls. Wait, there's a hugely ironic Dateline episode on about people who surmounted long odds to make it to the top. Yup, your new hero is Joy Mangano, the divorced mom who invented the waterless mop to feed her kids and now lives in a twenty million dollar East Hampton spread just down the beach from Spielberg. Hah, the old man who dumped her for some tramp is now a lowly employee. You're totally loving that.

Stop thinking about your own ex, you haven't missed the big Croat for a good eight to ten years. Then again, he was always up for a celebration, the pricier the better. Last you heard he was body guarding for a no-name Saudi prince in Dubai. Do not get on that computer and search for the last e-mail where he claimed he'd "luff you 4ever, good Giuletta!" You always could measure how wasted he was by the quality of his spelling and grammar. Who are you to judge, you're half-crocked yourself. Yes, but never at a loss for words, darling. That's why they pay us the big bucks. The big, huge, rocking bucks!
That's it, sister, pour yourself another glass of champagne and phone in that long overdue order to HB Freaking O! Hell, get Showtime, too, and whoever's broadcasting the lady erotica starring Fabio at his peak, or perhaps a young, unknown college boy named Sly Stallone. Yup, it's good being queen, even if you are drunk, cheap and sleeping alone with the "Corgis" while some loser sits across town in a holding cell wishing he didn't have to call his father collect. Here's to you, good Giuletta. To the good life.