Nina In New York: The Snooki Is Coming For You
A young professional's take on the trials and tribulations of everyday life in New York City.
______________________
By Nina Pajak
Stop the press! Hide the children. Lock the doors and bolt the windows, or vice versa! Snooki is coming.
Dun dun dunnnnnn.
This horror story is brought to you by Halloween, and the letter $.
She started out like any other crudely drawn Italian stereotype: just an innocent young girl with a short skirt, a lot of eyeliner, a golden tan, and a healthy appetite for fun, men and booze. The young girl loved to go out with her friends and just, like, party and have a good time, you know? Because she was just, you know, all about having a good time. All she really wanted was to find people to love, and for people to love her in return. She had always felt destined to become a princess, and she just knew that somehow, if she could only find enough strangers to adore her, her wish would be granted. Now, everybody knows that the best way to get people to like you is to get drunk and flash your hoo-ha as often and publicly as possible. So when the girl was given the opportunity to be on television, it was like a dream come true. She would finally become the Princess of Poughkeepsie.
It seemed like it was going so well. Sure, there were a few hiccups at the beginning, but before long Princess Snooki was the apple of everyone's eye. With her teased hair crown and her furry slippers, she stumbled up and down the Seaside Heights boardwalk like royalty. Juicehead gorillas fell at her feet everywhere she went. She dined on the finest fried foods and drank from a jewel-encrusted plastic Big Gulp of Goldschlager. Life was grand.
But things were taking a turn towards the dark side. The Princess had had a taste of fame, fortune, and the Gym-Tan-Laundry lifestyle, and now she couldn't stop. She had to be more famous, richer, tanner, drunker! Her once-golden skin took on an eerie, nuclear glow, like chicken that's been left on the rotisserie spinner too long. Her formerly well-placed eyeliner began to drool down her face in slow, thick rivulets, irreversibly staining her skin from weeks of non-stop partying. Her regal Poughkeepsian lexicon became garbled with phrases like "doing sex," and "meatball problems." No one could understand her any longer, not even her friends and subjects. She stopped having any idea what she was ever talking about and got caught in an endless verbal loop of nonsensical catch-phrases that could be bedazzled onto cheap t-shirts. Her loyal subjects began to defect because she forced them to think sad and annoying thoughts about drinking less and getting outside more. There were some who wanted to help her clean up her act and pull down her skirt a little (just a little!), but it was too late.
She'd become a Frankenstein's monster cobbled together from commercialism, greed, the entertainment industry's values, public lechery, and Aquanet. There was no stopping her.
And then it was announced that she would be coming . . . to NEW YORK CITY! To a mall on Staten Island, no less! Where she will be promoting a new line of sunglasses to which she has lent her oh-so-sullied name. The humanity! The vulgarity!
A celebrity of dubious standards hawking a product at an elevated institution of intellectualism and enlightenment like a shopping mall?
"For shame!" cried the politicians, who reached across the aisle and took time away from their busy and important jobs to make a public statement on this potential crisis. "We won't stand for it!"
"They're right!" cried the townspeople! "She will corrupt our children!"
Encouraged by the townspeople's response, which was never so positive when it came to issues like unemployment, economic ruin, and crime rates, the politicians puffed their chests out, stood a little taller, and continued.
"She will poison our youth!"
"Yes!"
"We must stop this at once!"
"Please, help us, politicians!"
"Get someone classy, like Taylor Swift!"
"Yes, Taylor Swift," the townspeople echoed. "She looks like she washes her face regularly!"
"Then it is settled," said the politicians, wringing their hands and licking their lips unconsciously. "Um, and there are no new jobs yet," they added quickly.
But the townspeople did not hear them, as their ears were filled with millions of magenta spangles raining from Taylor Swift's collection of sparkly dresses.
Shortly thereafter, the country went into a recession and everyone lost all their money and nobody could afford luxury items like sunglasses ever again. When the townspeople turned to the politicians for help, all they found were vacant business suits with starchy collars seated at empty desks in deserted offices.
Snooki completed a very successful mall tour of the tri-state area and grossed $70,000,000 in her first year of business, most of which she spent on Jager shots, furry boots, and dry powder shampoo. The rest went to the salaries of her many workers, as she had become the largest single employer in New York State.
The end.
_________________________
Dear Readers: While I am rarely at a loss for words, I'm always grateful for column ideas. Please feel free to e-mail me your suggestions.
Nina Pajak is a writer and publishing professional living with her husband on the Upper West Side.
The Nina Archives:
Metro-North To Passengers: Shut. Up. Already.
No Shirt? No Problem, Plus More Bizarre NYC Laws
The Doctor Is In. And He Totally Hates Women.
