Real Housewives of New York? Ha!

This real housewife of New York City did not spend yesterday contemplating the purchase of a $2,655 gown. She did spend several minutes contemplating whether to throw out the chicken from four nights ago or serve it again for dinner.

Tasted fine.

And that, dear readers, sums up everything you need to know about the reality show that recently debuted on Bravo, "The Real Housewives of New York City." Whether fabulously wealthy or remarkably middle-class, housewives just aren't that fun to watch as they buy stuff, eat stuff, talk to their children, or flirt with their private tennis pros.

Well, the flirting might hold a soupçon of sizzle if the lass were as witty as New York women are reputed to be. But on the Bravo show, here is what the salon-blonde, heavily mascaraed "housewife," Ramona Singer, had to say about the stud as he took his shirt off: "He likes to take his shirt off."

Dorothy Parker, R.I.P.

With highlights such as that — not to mention long scenes of vegetable chopping — this show may finally do for New York what "Friends," "Sex and the City," "Lipstick Jungle," "Cashmere Mafia" and even "The View" have not been able to do: Make life in Manhattan's social swirl seem about as scintillating as tea with a Vermont Teddy Bear.

The seven-episode series follows five so-called housewives (including one who is not a wife and four who have jobs) as they go about their daily lives. One, Jill Zarin, is seen sending her beautiful 15-year-old daughter to a weight-loss camp (natch). Another, a would-be lifestyle guru, modestly hopes to "become a household name." (Be careful what you wish for, Omarosa … er … Bethenny Frankel.) A third, Alex McCord, sighs happily that she and her husband are "each other's stylists," apparently not seeing what my four housewife friends saw as we watched the show.

"HE'S GAY!" they cried as the neatly bearded hotelier adjusted his wife's dress.

(For the record, he could just be a supportive metrosexual.)

Then there's Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, who seems, despite her title, the least affected of the five, even though we learn that her previous dog never was fully housebroken, and her maid had to clean up the mess. For years. And then there is the tennis-pro-lusting Ramona.

As they talk about their homes, a price tag appears on the screen: "Avg. 4 Bedroom Condo Upper East Side: $4.4 million." Same thing happens when they shop: "Handbag: $1,500." Money is Topic A pretty much all the time, as they matter-of-factly mention that schools must be private, nannies French, and summer homes situated in the Hamptons, New York's answer to the Riviera, where real estate costs blah, blah, blah.

It's like listening to your uncle talk about what he spent on his shoes from Kohl's. OK, OK. Can we please talk about something else? Politics? Religion? Who's having an outpatient procedure?

But it is not just the dollar signs that make this series so dull. It's also that a lot of the time these women look as if they're playing roles copied from more glamorous New York shows.

When they get out of a car, they stop and twirl. When they gather at the pool for a party that looks as spontaneous as a double kidney transplant, they somehow manage to turn the talk to pole dancing. Then the teeny-bikini babes somehow manage to start a catfight. Splash! Someone's thrown into the water. It's "Middle-Aged Housewives Gone Girls Gone Wild."

And this is that teeming fulcrum of creativity, Gotham?

"You don't come to New York for what they came to New York for," said Jesse Kornbluth, a chronicler of the social scene and editor of HeadButler.com. "You can do what they do in Atlanta."

And what is that?

"Social climb," he said. "All of those women screamed ' suburb .'"

Meow! Spoken like a true New Yorker.

Too bad he's not a housewife.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at The New York Sun and Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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