ShallowGal debates the merits of an oligarchy during a post-Bush administration

No, I'm totally kidding. (1) We're going to discuss Paris Hilton's new reality show. Eventually. There's a lot of back story to cover first.

See last week ShallowGal and her friend Alicia had dinner at Pia's house. SG calls Pia her pretty friend. (2) Pia's been SG's go-to friend for years; even if weeks or months go by between conversations, Pia will always answer a distress call with "What can I do?" Answers have included such massive favors as "watch my kids while I go to the Bahamas."

ShallowGal occasionally gets to be the helpful friend. Once ShallowGal watched Pia's dog for a week. The dog-sitting was PCSguy's idea, his ploy to get a family dog. However (as any mother would predict) despite the many promises by the posse, all care of the dog fell upon ShallowGal.

Quelle surprise.

But in true ShallowGal fashion, the dog was walked, fed and at the end of the week returned home. Whereupon Pia received an email explaining that we could not dog sit again in the future as Noa had become "allergic."

Nice. (3)

Another time was when Pia's husband, who SG likes to call Adam (4), slipped on the ice and broke his leg. Not only did ShallowGal show up at the hospital with a turkey sandwich for Pia's lunch but when the orthopedic surgeon arrived to discuss the impending operation and asked if there were any questions, ShallowGal asked "will he be able to play the violin afterward?"

(Would you believe the surgeon had never heard that joke before? What the hell kind of medical school did he go to? And Adam did not consider this guy's complete lack of a sense of humor a reason to find a new surgeon.)

Pia was the first on the scene when Phil died, the first at the hospital (5) when Eli was born. She sets the standard to which ShallowGal holds potential friends.

What does this have to do with Paris Hilton? I have no idea. Damn back story got me all confused. Plus why is it called the back story when I told it first? It should be called the front story.

Wait, I got it. Seven months ago, ShallowGal applied to be on Paris Hilton, My New BFF. Oddly enough MTV passed. Their loss. ShallowGal makes for excellent reality television, all unshowered and pajama clad.

But ironically this show premiered the night that ShallowGal arrived home from her drunken fete. And SG realized how much she appreciates her real BFFs.

First Paris kicked four girls out based on a lousy first impression. (6) Screw that. In Shallow-land, you get many chances to make a first impression, even if that's technically impossible.

Then Paris required her new friends to get radical makeovers. Dude. You can hang with me no matter how your hair looks. Actually, I'm a huge believer in the worse you look, the better I look.

Piss Paris off and you're headed home. Her parting words? "Our friendship is over. TTYN." Harsh. Way worse than "my kid is now allergic to your dog." Right?

Paris Hilton's words of wisdom: Best friends should trust each others opinions. ShallowGal's opinion? Paris Hilton makes good television but SG will hold on the the friends she already has.

1) SG doesn't know what, if anything, that even means
2)Mostly because Pia instructed SG to call her the pretty friend. ALL ShallowGal's friends are gorgeous.
3) I had completely forgotten this story until Pia reminded me somewhere after our third bottle of wine. Also, observant readers will notice that on long posts SG has moved back to the annoying habit of constantly shifting from the first to the third person and back. Deal with it.
4) Luckily it's his name.
5) Looking, PCSguy likes to say, like Neiman Marcus exploded.
6) Granted one of the girls saw the Virgin America sign and exclaimed "we're going to London!" so maybe Paris wasn't too far off base.