There were two urban legends that ran rampant in the 1980s. One was that mysterious drug pushers were passing out stickers laced with LSD at schoolyard playgrounds. Another was that dealers were poking teenagers at concerts with heroin-filled syringes.

Talk about your weird segues. What does all this have to do with the Sex and the City finale? Last month, I found myself trapped in a Comfort Inn during Winterblast. Snowed in and with nothing better to do, I unsuspectingly switched over to HBO, hoping for a Sopranos rerun. What was on instead? Carrie and her posse of cosmopolitan-lovin' cosmopolitans. Queue the Velvet Underground...

[Sarah Jessica Parker], be the death of me
[Sex and the City], it's my wife and it's my life
Because a mainer to my vein
Leads to a center in my head
And then I'm better off and dead...

Had I made it just a few weeks longer, the show would be off the air and I wouldn't be cursed with this foul addiction. Now I'm half-way through a (borrowed) DVD-set of the first season. As far as I know, Kevin Smith and I are only males on the planet that will openly admit to sitting through a full episode.

Is Sex and the City actually good? For what it is, sure. The jokes are sharp and there's lots n' lots of naughty words. Nevertheless, it's as redundant as any sitcom on network TV and Nothing Ever Seems to Happen. Every episode features no less than two scenes of the protagonists lounging around the latest uber-trendy NYC hot spot. Each and every conversation follows a sort of Ad Libs pattern.

CARRIE: Say..what do you guys know about [INSERT RANDOM SEXUAL ACT]?

THE REALLY, REALLY NAIVE CHICK: What? Huh? That's offensive (giggle).

THE SNOOTY LAWYER CHICK: Nobody ever does [RANDOM SEXUAL ACT].

THE OVERSEXED, OVER-50 CHICK: I've done that 551,451,215 times. You're all soooo uptight. More alcohol now!

Four women sitting around talking about sex = good...right? Well, not when they're all pushing forty and look like Sarah Jessica Parker. So..why watch it?

Well, in one episode Carrie is ever so happy about scoring a bus ad for her weekly advice column. Men all over Manhattan will be drooling over her picture. Later, she gathers together her pals as they don party hats and sip Champaign, eagerly waiting for the bus to pass down 5th Avenue. When it does, Carrie bursts into tears. A graffiti artists has a scribbled a gigantic "wee-wee" next to her mouth.

The show usually leaves the ironic misogynistic gags to the likes of The Man Show, preferring to follow the adventures of Carrie's cackling coven as they tear through every male they can get their claws on. Like all nasty drugs, Sex and the City is bad for me but I can't...stop...watching...it.

Hoping to kill this habit, cold turkey, and save me from five full seasons of catty sexual conquests, I tuned in to the series finale. I figured the conclusion would provide closure and silence the craving.

Carrie ditches her self-absorbed French beau and winds up with Mr. Big, a multi-millionare she met in the series' first episode (big surprise. Yawn!). One of her friends scores an Asian baby, another one learns a lesson about unconditional love and the slutty chick boinks her brains out after beating cancer.

I'm proud to report that I've been clean and sober for going on 24-hours. When I get home, the DVD set will be banished to a spot underneath a pile of dirty laundry, where it will sit until it can be returned the owner. And I Will Never Ever Watch HBO Ever Again Ever.

PS: Years ago, I remember reading a rumor that Sex and the City would be toned-down and shipped to Fox. This never happened. If it had, the show would have been huge among Friends devotees. It's a shame, really. Sex and the City may be tripe, but at least it's good tripe. Every episode of Friends, on the other hand, must've come from the Powerbook of Lucifer himself.