Housewives in their Natural Habitat

Here are a few things you may know about New Jersey:

1. Everyone in New Jersey knows each other. Or if they don't know each other personally, they know each other's siblings, cousins, high school math teachers, or Rutgers roommates.
2. Lots of people in New Jersey are Italian (and have a unique way of pronouncing words like manicotti that involves condensing syllables and transplanting consonants.)
3. New Jersey is America's second wealthiest state... and where there is wealth, there are housewives.

If by some chance you didn't know these things, you will learn them, inside and out, when Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey premieres in May. Because this series, (which rightfully -- we all know -- should have spawned the franchise) stars: A) a pair of sisters, who are married to a pair of brothers, and their sister-in-law (the brothers' sister) who are B) Italian and their friend who C) "prides herself as one of the first female American Express Black card members in New Jersey."

If that high-def cultural caricature fails to pique your interest, allow me to direct your attention to the photo above, where the ladies are posed at the one and only Jersey Shore. And if that doesn't get your heart racing like a roller coaster ride followed by a $30 tattoo, then clearly your name isn't Anderson Cooper.

--JESSANNE COLLINS

Previously >Battle of the Coasts: The Housewife Homophobia Edition