Paris and Nicole

I got too curious, and I had to check out The Simple Life, a reality show where socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie gets to live on a farm in the mid west, without their credit cards and servants and cell phones. So I rented the first season.

It's fun. Just in the first episode we learn that not only do the girls not know what "bottled water, generic" is, but they don't know what the word "generic" means.

Also, Nicole don't know what a Wall Mart is, and neither of them has seen one. The family is incredulous. In the country in the US, not knowing what a Wall Mart is, is like not knowing what a road or a roof is.

When they go shopping for the family, they get a few extra items and overshoot the fifty dollars they've been given, by fifteen. They don't understand why the store won't just give them the groceries. And they don't understand the term "soup kitchen" when the clerk says that the store isn't one.

They can't bring themselves to touch a dead animal when asked to pluck a chicken, and they totally freak out when there are small bugs in their room. The family's four-year-old boy kills the bugs for them.

They seem to be lovely people at heart, but they are every bit as spoiled rotten as you'd expect. In the beginning they go at a shopping spree before the farm trip. They buy accessories at prices like $1500 and $2000 a piece. And I'm sure none of them has ever done an hour's honest work in her life, and wouldn't have any idea of how much of it it would take for most people to buy a $2000 handbag. Not that there's anything wrong with luxury items as such, it's just the level of disconnect that's interesting.

It's not their fault. How can you understand something you've never been exposed to? How can you understand "I can't afford this jacket", when you've never seen anything in your life you couldn't just put on your credit card?

It's a hoot and a holler.