Dear New York, we don't care. Love, EVERYONE ELSE

So here's the thing (my brother-in-law LOVES it when I say that)--the east coast got a little sampling of what it's like to live in the rest of the country this week. And I say this with bitterness, of course, because what am I except bitter?

EVERYBODY LOVES NEW YORK. I got the memo. But the thing is, New Yorkers are kinda obnoxious. I know, I'm speaking from Alabama, the epicenter of moonshine swillin', incest-havin', NASCAR drivin' rednecks. I didn't forget. And New Yorkers do a LOT of stuff well, don't get me wrong: fashion, culture, and weight management leap to mind. BUT they're kind of media whores.

They also like to spend money on things like third basemen, itty-bitty condos, shoes, houses in the Hamptons. But, mostly, they like to be the center of the universe. Galileo would have had his work cut out with New Yorkers. What is this you say, Galileo? 'Tis not a Pomum Magnus-centric solar system, nay universe? Heretic! Death by New Jersey!

So, when the big quake hit this week, everyone on the eastern seaboard ducked and covered like good little 4th graders in a school drill. Except New Yorkers, who were like, meh. That wasn't an earthquake. I barely felt it. Too cool for school. BUT then, the Leno-ite, west coasters were like, oh MY GOD. The media is like totally freakin' out over like the smallest earthquake EVAH. Then, the New York Times ran a blog about how mean spirited the west coasters were. How they diminished the New Yorkers' tragedy of a the earthquake of the millenium. (What?!? It IS the first earthquake of the milennium. Or, rather, the ONLY.) Which left the valley girls sputtering, bbbbut? Like, nobody was hurt, and like your Louis Vuitton is like still ok. And Bloomingdales' only lost like a couple of things off the shelves, and like....WAIT A SECOND! What the hell did we do wrong?

True that, valley girls. Everything in New York is IMPORTANT. It AFFECTS things. Never you mind about Northridge, or Oakland, or that quaint little trading outpost you had up north that burned to the ground 100 years ago. That San? Something? I think it's famous for bread and poor people jeans, and NOT EVERYTHING ELSE, like New York.

THEN, as if God was heaping disaster upon catastrophe, and punishing the Jews and Homosexuals, he sent a tropical storm up the coast. New Yorkers, taken aback, were aghast that a natural disaster normally reserved for the mouth breathers of the Gulf South and the hilbillies of the South East was headed their way. How could THIS happen?

Everyone from the Weather Channel bimbos to the President of the United States was sounding the alarm about HISTORIC HURRICANE IRENE. Evacuate Manhattan! Close the subways! Save the Guggenheim! Tell your nannies to hide the children! Preserve Wall Street! Use the New Jersey trash islands to fortify the city! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

They (and by they, I mean the liberal media) want us to know that the center of the world is in danger, because that's the only way they can get the entire western civilization to pay attention to New York all at once (unless they could arrange a Mets-Yankees World Series, and I suspect Fox Sports is working on this as we speak), and New Yorkers love that. They bask in it like the warm sun glancing off a yellow cab. But, of course, New Yorkers are blase and un-ruffle-able, so they have martini parties and catered hurricane shindigs, just to prove that they are too resilient to fear THE STORM OF THE CENTURY.

Now, the next time a Katrina barrels up the Mississippi River and an entire city is nearly wiped off the map, we'll have to hear all the people up in the Big Apple say, "hurricane? Pshaw. We've been through that. It's no big deal. We had a HISTORIC hurricane here in '11 and I weathered it with lobstah and Grey Goose. What's wrong with that New Or-lee-ans? They lack New York fortitude."

So, New-York centric media and the good citizens of Metropolis, I say this: stop blowin' crap outta proportion. You lose your authority. You're like parents who yell at their kids all the time and then when you REALLY need them to listen, they don't care. Do not hit the panic button until it is time to do so. I do not want to see anymore pictures of urban dwellers in the rain without power. There is tragedy, out there, people. Rain ain't it.