问她如何辨别两人， 她说有时也认错，一个洗了两回澡，一个脏兮兮了两天。问两人性格相不相似，她说才几个月就很明显了，一个抢东西一次两次三次不得要领便乖乖放弃，另一个轻易不肯罢休，想要的非到手不可，三岁看三十这句古话还是有道理。

逃难般离开她家，到美容院里透透气。

美容师黛西倚熟卖熟地数落我 “死哪儿去了？晒得像非洲人一样。”

“处女群岛七天九十五度的太阳，不黑才怪。你也该晒晒去。”我想拖伊下水。

伊横了我一眼，懒得睬我，自顾查我的帐户，叫了起来，“你帐户付的是周一到周五的时间段。你说不想在周末和别人挤热闹，记得吗？今天是礼拜天，要补差价噢。”

我愣一愣，想起是有这分别，被双胞胎姐妹闹昏了头，记得自家姓什麽就不错了。

我转转眼珠子，双手托着腮帮，靠在柜台上，斯条慢里说，“这是长周末，礼拜五等于礼拜六，礼拜天等于礼拜一。你不觉得下个周末已经快到了吗？”还没说完，头上挨了一榧子。

“还狡辩。我长这麽大还没见过这麽耍赖的人。你小时候一定是个小泼皮。”伊恨恨地说，但终于屈服在我指鹿为马的专制之下，不加钱。

回到家打电话向母亲求证我儿时脾气，母亲说, “泼皮倒还不至于，就是不理人。才五个月，抱到花园里坐下，自顾自玩，大人假装走开也不在乎，很有信心别人会舍不下你回来抱你走。”我大乐–原来自信是先天的，那赖皮的本事呢？是后天跟韦小宝学的吧。

ON THE LAST DAY OF MAY, my younger son was flipping through the movie section of the newspaper when he looked up with sad eyes. "All month, we had good movies--'Iron Man,' 'Speed Racer,' 'Prince Caspian,' 'Indiana Jones'--but then ... this," he intoned, unable to bring himself to utter the words "Sex and the City." "What happened?"

 Indeed, across America, countless guys felt that the manly month of May, when the biggest explosion-laden blockbusters are unveiled at the multiplex, was being tainted by the long lines of ladies attending the film version of the 1998-2004 HBO sitcom. "Sex and the City" updates us on the coven of skanky spinsters who long ago moved to Manhattan to fine “label and love” (there apparently being no stores or men in Minnesota, or wherever). 

 Inside the theater, the palpable affection toward the characters was reminiscent of a 1980s “Star Trek” movie, whose fans couldn’t wait to hear Scotty exclaim one more time, “She cannae take any more!” Granted, the movie version of “sex and the City” isn’t as witty as “Star Trek IV.” It’s also grindingly long at 148 minutes – the DVD ought to include a “Couples’ cut” with an hour edited out and aa few dozen more jokes tossed in. Still, it’s certainly no worse than the “Matrix” sequels and “Star Wars” prequels that males turned out to see by the tens of millions.

 The stars aren’t getting any younger, so site in the back row. Hollywood has generations of experience lighting actresses of a certain age, though, the three supporting women look passable, even Cynthia Nixon (who plays the prickly red-headed Miranda), whom I pointed out to my wife in 1998 was an obvious lesbian. (It took Nixon until 2003 to figure it out for herself.)

 In contrast, “Sex and the City’s” leading lady, prpoted fashion icon Sarah Jessica Parker, who portrays columnist Carrie Bradshaw, looks like a bulimic bodybuilder. Evidently fearing maronly upper arms, the 43-year-old with zero percent body fact appears to have spent the last four years bench pressing and not eating, giving the grotesquely defined arm musculature of Rambo after the Bataan Death March. Her hore chin and witch nose have become even more prominent, making me wonder whether, like Sylvester Stallone, who was recently arrested smuggling Human Growth Hormone into Australia, she’s on some muscle-building medicine with head-enlarging side effects.

 In the climactic scene in which bow-legged Carrie reunited with her true love, the financier Mr. Big (played by an embalmed-looking Chris Noth from “Law & Order”), Parker’s cheesy fur coat and stick insect legs jutting out of her tiny skirt make her resemble a streetwalking crack addict. The sequence is a masterpiece of the memento mori genre, a terrifying depiction of the skull beneath the skin. Unfortunately, it’s supposed to be a romantic comedy.

 As hideous as Parker looks, the “Sex and the City” movie is actually less repugnant than the TV series. Each of the four women is monogamous throughout the year covered in the film. That’s typical for rom-com movies these days, which are about living happily ever after. In contrast, the TV show just went on and on for six years, with the body counts (and, presumably, STD’s) piling up.

 The 1998 TV series was to Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel Bridget Jones’s Diary as Dick Wolf’s 1990 TV show Law & Order was to Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities. Wolf made a fortune by taking Wolfe’s sardonic story of New York cops and prosecutors hunting for “the Great White Defendant” and stripping out all the satire. Similarly, the gay male writers behind Sex and the City started with Fielding’s spoof of “urban families” of stylish singer women who undermine each other’s chances of landing a husband by constantly gathering over drinks to nitpick their boyfriends, and turned these mutually destructive circles into a fantasy about friendship. 

 It was never actually about female solidarity but about female competition for alpha males like Mr. Big. Nevertheless, women hate to be seen as competitive, so “Sex and the City” displayed the nice side of cliquishness, minus the nasty side: these social X-rays wouldn’t be seen dead in the company of 99 percent of their fans.

 The trick was to make women viewers feel less awful about the big mistakes they’ve made in their lives by making their bad decisions feel fashionable. Misery loves company.