The Nanny

Over the past few weeks, my life has been consumed by The Nanny. In case you've been living in North Korea for over two decades, The Nanny is the suuuuper '90s TV series starring Fran Drescher as the nasally caretaker of three, and Charles Shaughnessy as British dad heartthrob Maxwell Sheffield. The show also features a sardonic butler, a melodramatically lovestruck business partner, and one ingenious one-liner after another.

Rather than rehash the general plot of the show, I yield to the theme song (with some spelling and punctuational embellishments of my own): 

"She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens 
'til her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes.
What was she to do, where was she to go, she was out on her fannyyyyy!
So over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffields' door,
she was there to sell makeup but the father saw more.
She had style! She had flair! She was there!
That's how she became the nannyyyyyyy!
Who would have guessed that the girl we described
was just exactly what the doctor prescribed?
Now the father finds her beguiling (watch out, C.C.!)
and the kids are actually smiling (such joie de vivre!).
She's the lady in red when everybody else is wearing taaaaaaan,
The flashy girl from Flushing, the nanny named Fran!"

That's basically it. It's the age-old story: Boy meets girl, boy mistakes girl for a childcare provider, girl spends five years flaunting her sexuality in front of boy, and eventually boy and girl get to first-name basis (and later, first base).

In short, it's stupendous.

Recently I have begun reevaluating my friendships based on the reactions I get to the statement, "I've been doing nothing but watching reruns of The Nanny." (This may be true Whether or not this is true is not important.) If my confession--nay, revelation (a confession implies embarrassment, and I am certainly not embarrassed)--is met with, "Oh my gosh, I love The Nanny!" or similar exclamations of jubilance, I am reassured that I have found in that person a kindred spirit and that all our years (or weeks, or months) of friendship have been truly meaningful. If, however, I encounter such sentiments as, "Seriously?" or the bone-chilling, "Why?" I immediately retreat into a momentary but cavernous depression wherein the very foundation of my friendship with that person begins to sink into the molten mantle of the earth's core.

This show has become my essence. It makes me love my Jew nose and rekindles my junior-year desire to learn Yiddish from the Yiddish fridge magnets I found behind the microwave during high school. I want to wear outlandish clothing and laugh like a herd of goats and binge on chocolate bars hidden inside a loaf of challah. 

From now on, I can conceive of no greater aspiration than the ever-noble goal of becoming a Jew. 

If you need me, I'll be in my room practicing my pronunciation of "nuchslep."