Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap – 2/24/15

A long time ago in a faraway land called Huntington, Massachusetts, I went to a sleepaway camp for six consecutive summers. It was there – in the fresh air and to a schedule dictated by a bugle – that that I had my first kiss with a cute blonde boy, where I learned to do the butterfly stroke in the dark and murky lake, and where I engaged in fierce battles of Color War where the entire camp was split into two groups and we spent a week engaged in tug-of-war battles that could get real ugly real fast. I was never the most competitive kid in the bunk, but during Color War, all bets were off; I wanted to f*cking win.

The enforced division that took place turned us all briefly into adversaries, but once the week ended and we were back in our bunks and allowed to wear any color shirt that we damn well pleased, the harmony came flooding back. And maybe nothing said “harmony” in those days quite as strongly as when a girl I had been brawling with all week over games of volleyball – during which I “accidentally” lobbed a ball straight at her head – smiled widely at me and then allowed me to borrow her Camp Beverly Hills sweatshirt to wear to the dining hall.

Do you remember the brand Camp Beverly Hills? The font of the brand looked kind of campy and rustic and the logo had a bunch of palm trees stuck on top of a piece of weedy grass and it was kind of expensive. I didn’t have any Camp Beverly Hills apparel of my own, which was why it felt like a big honor to get to wear that Flashdance-style cut-off sweatshirt. At eleven years old, with boobies that were just starting to sprout, I had never felt more stunning than when that grey sweatshirt hung off of my sunburnt shoulder.

Maybe that’s why the sight of the Housewives from Beverly Hills hoofing it through the streets of the palm-tree lined city for a scavenger hunt on last night’s episode appealed to me. I felt for a second as though I was actually watching Camp Beverly Hills come to life! But even though there’s something sweet about experiencing a moment of nostalgia while sitting in a house that has more than one bathroom – which means that I won’t have to walk down or up a hill to pee like I had to do at Camp Norwich – the sight of Kyle in yoga pants and a Chanel fanny pack completely destroyed my fantasy.

You read that correctly: Kyle owns and wore a Chanel fanny pack to run through the streets of Beverly Hills and I’m not sure that my eyesight will ever recover from her nouveau riche bullsh*t or the fact that Karl Lagerfeld once sanctioned the making of a fanny pack. I just know that somebody must carry the blame for this label-nightmare, and since I tend to blame Kyle for most things, I think I’ll keep that consistency going and blame her for this fashion infraction.

Bitch might have ruined my memories of Camp Beverly Hills forever. And for that she must be punished by having to wear off-the-rack attire until the next eclipse occurs, whenever that might be.

Before the Yolanda-organized scavenger hunt could officially begin, the ladies had to be divided into teams. Rounding out our usual group of suspects were Camille, former Housewife extraordinaire, and Eileen’s friend, whose name I didn’t catch because I was too busy lighting a candle and chanting an incantation that would cause Kyle’s hair to fall out in one giant clump. But regardless of that person’s name, what really matters here is that the teams were divided “randomly,” which of course translates to producers giggling in a dark room somewhere while deciding that the teams would be divided thusly: Kyle, Brandi, and Camille; Eileen, Kim, and Eileen’s friend; and Lisa V., Lisa R, and Yolanda.