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Last night on the Americans Against Bullying Present Bully for You: A Fashion Celebration to End Bullies Bullying everyone was a bully, except for Countess Crackerjack. She was a thug. A thug in a cocktail dress. A thug is just like a bully, except it wears bigger necklaces.

What is that we hear? "Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir," it's the dulcet tones of someone speaking en Francais. "Laissez les bons temps rouler. Ou est la bibliothèque? Louis Quatorze. Poutin. Filet Mignon. Médecins Sans Frontières." It was the Countess, spouting off every Francophone phrase she could think of, the cedillas dangling out of her mouth like a bird trying to gnosh a trashing worm. Then Sonja arrived. "Oh, Sonja. Bonjour... I mean, hello. Obviously you don't speak French!"

Sonja arrived at a restaurant with her hair ruffled and her clothes a mess, with a misty glow about her face. "Sorry," she said. "I just came from working out. And by working out, I mean Michael my 'butler' working me out all over the chaise in my salon. Can I get a high five, sister!" While reaching for her chair, she put her palm out flat and pointed it at the Countess, who reluctantly tapped it with her own hand. She looked at the tips of her fingers and rubbed them together a bit before lowering them under the table and secretly wiping them on her napkin.

"Sonja, we all need to go on a trip and the producers struck a deal with the Moroccan tourism bureau I've decided we should go to Morocco," Crackerjacks said, using her English.
"You mean that grey-haired lisping comedian? Why should we go see him?" Sonja asked.
"No, Sonja, not Mo Rocca. Morocco."
"What does Mariah Carey's son have to do with this?"
"Nothing. Oh, no, his name is Morrocan. That is kind of a stupid name. I was just saying the other day to my son Noel..."
"You want to take your son to a Mariah Carey concert?"
"No, Sonja. Will you pay attention. We're all going to Morocco. It's a country, with sand and camels."
"Are there men?"
"Yes, Sonja there are men."
"I'm in.

So, everyone's going to Morocco. LuAnn calls Jill and she's ready to go. Alex, as always, is game for just about anything. Ramona at first flat out says no, but then changes her mind and says she'll make it work. Zombie Cindy is all excited to go back to the Middle East where her undead ancestors who are now dead again originally came from. The only one who is wavering is Kelly Killoren Bensimon. I picture poor Kell-Kell visiting Morocco for a sand-themed bikini shoot in her younger modeling days, and she was just so scared to be so far away from home. She sat on set with her coltish legs pulled up in a director's chair wearing only a man's shirt and the swimsuit the stylist picked out for her underneath. She was trying to color in one of her coloring books (this one was based on Madeline her favorite book growing up because it was full of nice nuns and nothing comforts Kelly quite like a nun) but the only color she could find was Burnt Sienna and so she was coloring everything in that deep brown, blurring everything into one giant slab of color with black lines interrupting and making up the characters. And everything was the same, the color and the sand and the sky and her hair blowing in thick ringlets, and all Kelly really wanted was to go home. She didn't want to go to Morocco because it reminded her of that. Oh, that and the mental breakdown she had when the girls made her go to St. John. That too. Don't forget that.

But Kelly can't think about it right now, she's on her way over to Sonja's for a photoshoot. Sonja is having her picture taken for the Toaster Oven Cook Book that she's pretending to write. This is just like the Macrame Exercise Book and Left-Handed Parenting Manual she pretended to write before, but as usually happens with Sonja, after she's taken the pictures for the book cover, she gets bored with it and forgets about it and the pictures and the first seven sentences of the manuscript get forgotten about in the drawer like so many great American novels. Of course, when the photographer shows up Sonja has a big crush on him. "Let's get this started," she says to her latest bit of prey, bending over and sticking her ass out as she's trying to stick a tray in the toaster over. "Oh, do you like how I put the tray in the oven. I put it in and out and in and out, oooh!" she coos breathlessly. The photographer isn't buying it.

Sonja changes sets and dresses and now she's standing on her dining room table, where only the most noble of royal familes have stood before. "You know," she says to the photographer narrowing her eyes. "I'm not wearing panties!" That's when Kelly walks in and Sonja goes to sit down and says, "Look!" spreading her legs wide and her skirt hiking up, revealing her little toaster oven for the whole world to see. Well, maybe not the whole world, but at least the photographer and Kelly, both who couldn't care less, because they're both like, "Why the fuck is she sticking her twat out on the dining room table? That does not say 'Toaster Oven Cook Book.'" Kelly is so scarred by the flashing that she has to go and Sonja says, "I didn't want you here anyway. Hey, Mr. Photographer, why don't we go take the rest of these pictures (using her sexy voice) upstairs."
The photog says, "Um, that's a wrap."
"It's not a wrap. It's a ball gown. Wanna take it off me?"
"Sonja, that's it, I'm leaving."

While Sonja was trying to lure a photographer into bed, down in the West Village, Zombie Vector #1, Zombie Cindy was hatching a plan. How is she ever going to get these Housewives in a secluded location so that she could eat their brains? She finally figured it out: a trip! She's going to take them all to the big scary mansion from Clue and then pick them off one by one, eating a fine bowl of Monkey Brain Soup (a delicacy of Cantonese cuisine that isn't often found in Washington D.C.). So, Cindy and her zombie army invite LuAnn (whose brains taste like turquoise and stale Pall Mall smoke), Jill Zarin (whose brains taste like forgiveness), and Kelly (whose brains taste like Pop Rocks and coke at the same time and might be deadly if you ingest them) to Clue Manor. She tells them it's a spa, and when they get there, there's a box waiting for each of them with a different murder weapon in it. "Wait!" Cindy screams. "Those are the boxes for my zombie henchmen. These are the boxes for you." And she hands them each a box with a monogrammed bathrobe in it. Jill is so overjoyed that she puts hers on right there in the lobby. "Thanks so much, Cindy. That's so thoughtful," Jill says.
"Oh, it's nothing," Cindy replies. "Flesh tastes so much better when it's warm."
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. You'll see!"
And they all head off for a good night's sleep.

Oh, I totally forgot the car ride there. So everyone is riding in the car and LuAnn and Kelly are talking about how hard it is to date in New York City. You tell it sister! Then Kelly says, "Everyone thinks you're going meet a great guy, but I only meet sharks, bottom feeders, and minnows." Wow! That's...Wow! It's like in the movies where the child is the wisest of them all and pipes up with some very sage advice at just the right moment. God, I hate when Kelly is the voice of reason. Then she's like "Oh, and my husband used to beat me." Say, wha? I can't really make fun of that (boys, don't hit girls, OK) but LuAnn gives Kelly this big hug and Jill and Zombie Queen Cindy are in the back seat flipping through magazines like nothing happened. They're not even curious about this giant bit of news. Ho Hum. Just another abuse confession on the Housewives. Snore.

While they're at Clue Manor, they all have a big supper, except Cindy isn't eating anything. "Oh, don't worry. I'll have a little nibble in the middle of the night, when you're all asleep." As they're eating dinner and drinking apple cider champagne, Kelly tells everyone that she can't go on a trip with Ramona. Everyone hates Ramona right now. She's the big drunk bully of the group. Jill is mad at her for yelling at her at the wine party last week. LuAnn is mad at her for not apologizing to Jill for yelling at her at the wine party after she told LuAnn she was going to apologize. Kelly is mad at her because she happened to be present when she had an emotional breakdown on an island. Cindy is mad at her because she dragged her to a midnight screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Cigars 3D and that movie sucked and she wants her $15 back. They all hate her. So Kelly is like, "I can go to a party with her" (which obviously she can't, because when Ramona confronted her at the Horse Riding Party, she freaked the fuck out and went into the Lisa Frank folder mind of hers and didn't emerge for three days) "but I can't go on a trip with her." Damn, Kelly, don't rob us of the pleasure of seeing you and Ramona on a trip.

And then, Kelly said she was feeling sleepy. In fact, they were all feeling sleeping. The tranquilizers in the cider finally kicked in and all the women were passed out in their monogrammed bathrobes right there on the table. It was Zombie Cindy, in the library, with the tranquilizers. As her zombie cohorts start to shuffle in and Cindy has her giant chompers fixed right on the Countess head, the drumming starts. All the zombie's clutch their ears and recoil in horror. They hate nothing more than sound, and there is currently some truth telling drum circle going on at Clue Manor, and it is driving all of the zombies insane. They lurch off, unbending leg after unbending leg, their green faces and tattered clothing fading into the woods once again. The Housewives are safe for another night.

They make it back into the city, and it's time for Jill's Gala to End All Bullying. It's some sort of dinner/fashion show/silent auction/raffle/dunk tank affair. Basically it's every fundraiser Jill could think up all at once. Oh, and there are goodie bags. If there's one thing I know, it's that Jill Zarin makes up a good goodie bag. No lie!

Ramona shows up with a pallet of white wine and plops it down in the middle of the event. "Oh, Ramona, I'm so glad you brought bottles for the goodie bags!" Jill says.
"Oh, no, that's not for the goodie bags, that's what I'm going to have with lunch!" Ramona says. Oh, Ramona. You're really helping the producers to give you the "wino edit," aren't you? And once Ramona gets boozy then the crazy happens.

Well, this time it wasn't even her fault. LuAnn sashays up to Ramona and says, "You know, it's really bitchy that you stole all the designers in Manhattan." And Ramona is like "WTF" (she didn't really say "what the fuck" and I'm just abbreviating it, Ramona would actually say the letters W, T, and F). Apparently Ramona told all the other girls that they can't use her designer David Meester, who is Leighton's gay uncle. She also told him that if he dresses any other Housewives, she would cut of his balls, throw them in the vat with all the grapes and have fat Italian women stomp on them at next year's harvest when they're making her Ramona Pinot Grigiot. This pisses LuAnn off and she starts a tiff about it. This makes Ramona think that LuAnn is a "real B.I." I'm not sure what a "B.I." is. Is that a bitch? Is that like a "Bitchy Investigator." That would make for an awesome title for a TNT show. Countess Crackerjacks (ka-chung) B.I..

But then LuAnn changes gears. "You know, I was just at Clue Manor with Zombie Cindy, Mrs. Peacock [Jill Z] and Miss White [Kelly and the flames..flames...on the side of her face] and they don't want to go to Morocco because you're going to be there." Oh, LuAnn, the jig is motherfucking up. That's what this whole thing is about. You want to join the dog pile on Ramona and make everyone hate her.

That's when Alex finally says it, the line that we have been teased with for months. We were waiting, dying to know just which one of these bullies would deserve the title of "thug in a cocktail dress." Really, it could be any of them. Really, it is all of them, but it was LuAnn. That was a bit of a shock. And she took the revolver out of her purse and said, "Who are you, Alex, Perry Mason," and threatened the whole charity event. "Don't bother, LuAnn," Alex said. "There aren't any bullets left in that gun. There was two to kill Zombie Cindy's minions, two to stop Simon from wearing his red leather pants again, one for that guy who wouldn't fuck Sonja, and one from when Kelly thought it was a toy and just shot into the ceiling. That's 2 plus 2 plus 1 plus 1."
"No, there was only one bullet to keep Simon from wearing those red leather pants again. That's 2 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1."

Anyway, LuAnn is the thug in a cocktail dress. And she really deserved the title last night. She was just trying to pick a fight for no reason at all. LuAnn, get out of the drama, especially if you're going to keep pretending to be all haughty. All these women do is bully each other. They yell and call each other names and scream and shout and whoever is the loudest and most persistent wins. Yes, they're just a big bunch of bullies.

But then something real happened. Jill's step daughter Jennifer got up in front of the crowd and told her story about being the victim of bullying. Jennifer has a large birthmark across her face and a tumor in her lower lip that makes her face look a little odd. She stands up there strong and proud and tells everyone how the names really do hurt, how her self-image was shaped by the people mocking her. She tells them that it's not easy to go to bed every night wishing you wouldn't wake up. But she doesn't cry. She doesn't want pity. She's past that. She's left that chapter of her life behind. She wants understanding. She wants all of these turd-brained dingbats to finally get it and stop with the harassment.

And at that moment, something came over the crowd, certainly our Housewives, that merry band of incorporated thugs. They looked at each other, one to the next, around the table, and they didn't have to say anything. They just placed their arms around each other as the smiles grew on their faces. Jill held Alex's hand under the table and LuAnn looked over at Ramona, a few seats away and mouthed, "I'm sorry." Ramona nodded and then raised her glass of Pinot to LuAnn toasting her health, and making a warm yellow splotch of light on her cheek.

Everything was good for a moment. They had all learned their lessons, as one does at this type of charity event, and they walked out the doors feeling something different, like their hearts were just a bit lighter, that the world was going to change. But this wasn't the end. No, it's never the end. If you looked closely at the sidewalk, you could see little whisps of sand on the wind. Little pellets blown all the way over from Morocco and they were chasing the women already, calling up all the other particles in the dessert and whipping them into tornadoes of fury. Just wait until you get across the sea, ladies. Wait until the sand is there to devour you, to whip against your bodies with unrelenting fury, ripping the flesh as you struggle against it, leaving nothing but the clean white carcass behind it. Leaving nothing but bone.