I DO have a guilty pleasure.

OK, OK, OK...I do have a guilty pleasure. In fact, I have a lot of them. It has taken me all month to decide which I dared divulge, and finally I've made up my mind. And it is couch-related. Maybe admitting I have this problem will help me conquer it, or at least help me WANT to conquer it.

Months ago, thanks to Paul the Pool Guy, I discovered the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Nothing housewifey about them, and I think their homes are outside of Atlanta, but for me it become like the soaps I used to watch while folding diapers. My "baby" just turned forty-one, so it's been a while. These women appalled me, but they also fascinated me in a weird way. And so I graduated to the Real Housewives of Orange County, and watched several seasons of them on a BRAVO marathon. I am so glad not to know these women or any that even come close to their superficiality. That's really saying something when you consider that some people consider Hilton Head Island a plastic fantasy island. On to the Real Housewives of New York. (By the way, I never saw any of these women use a Swiffer or buy a cleanser of any type. Nor was there any cooking or laundering or clipping of coupons.)

The New York women interested me the most, and there were a couple of them that I might enjoy but they probably wouldn't enjoy me. Plus, I would end up hating them as I stressed over what to wear when I met them. At least two of them are former models, and one of them is a Countess (and will remain a Countess now that she is about to become a single housewife). But I like Jill and Bethenny, and can take Alex. The others, not really.

So when the New York reunion show was over, I thought, well that's the end of it. I wasn't attracted by the promos for the Real Housewives of New Jersey. It seemed as though it would be some kind of a Sopranos knockoff, and truthfully, I didn't like the Sopranos, even though I grew up in that part of NJ. Anyway, and I can't explain why, I watched the first show of the RH of NJ and my eyes bugged out as I realized that two of the women are sisters and are married to brothers (not their own brothers) who own The Brownstone in Paterson, NJ. I immediately related. I guess it doesn't take much.

What probably got to me was a memory of family drama that took place at The Brownstone when I was maybe seven or eight. My mother was from a huge family and one of the cousins was holding a wedding reception there, and my maternal grandmother showed up, unexpected, and my brother and I were ushered into the bar area to say hello to her since my mother and she weren't speaking. Welcome to my childhood, which had more than its share of real housewives of New Jersey since my grandmother was one of six sisters, who cooked and cleaned and catered to the menfolk.

I will keep watching, guiltily. This week's episode is coming on in eleven minutes. And I hear they are casting the Real Housewives of Chicago.