Lately, I just can’t stop thinking about Paris Hilton. (Yeah, I know, it’s not likely she has a similar obsession about me.)

Anyway, get your collective minds out of the gutter. (After all, I’m old enough to be here father, and just a few billion dollars short.) It’s not like I want to think about the hotel heiress all the time. I just don’t have any choice. The girl is everywhere: television shows, the Internet (where she is, among other things, a sex-tape star), commercials, magazines. She has her own perfume fragrance, jewelry line, and nightclub chain. Expected soon are Paris clothing and make up.

In other words, all Paris, all the time.

In the interest of fairness, let me say that I have never met Ms. Hilton. (No doubt, that’s a void she feels deep down in her globetrotting soul.) In fact, it’s likely I’ve never been within 500 miles of her, since Pittsburgh has yet to make her list of Top 50 party venues, and I’ve yet to set foot on South Beach or Cannes.

So everything I know about her has come through a carefully manipulated media prism, twisted and turned by those anonymous overseers of pop culture who remove our burden of having to make up our own minds by telling us what’s in and what’s out.

So here’s what I know so far. Paris Hilton is a 20-something, better-than-average-looking woman who had the good fortune to be born into a wealthy family. So far, so good. After all, who would begrudge anyone that? It’s not her fault that none of my relatives---or any of yours—thought that starting a hotel chain would be a good idea. I’ve stayed at a Hilton; they’re pretty nice. (No chocolates on the pillows, but no six-legged creatures sharing the room with you, either.)

Thus relieved of such mundane concerns as having to find (make that earn) money to pay for anything, Paris has spent much of her time spanning the globe in search of the next great party. Again, who can blame her? There’s a lot to be said for a meaningless existence.

But here’s where the story of the self-proclaimed “American princess” begins to irritate. Somewhere along the line, somebody decided that everybody else should care about Paris, that she somehow could fill a void in our otherwise mundane lives.

So she gets a TV show, “The Simple Life,” where, in effect, she has a dalliance with real work and we get to laugh at how inept she is. It’s real funny—until we realize that as soon as the director yells “cut,” Paris is once again surrounded by an entourage who cater to her every need. She doesn’t know what real work is because she doesn’t have to. Nice of the Fox Network to allow here to dabble in it for a few laughs.

While flipping through the cable channels, I landed on E!, only to learn that when Paris and her girl posse arrives at a trendy restaurant, they never have to pay for anything. Never mind that she probably could buy the restaurant. She is such an attraction (apparently, in-crowd members and paparazzi alike flock to her) that most restaurateurs are happy to pick up her tab. Even better (for her, at least), if Paris arrives and no table is available, some unlucky and less-desirable patron is told to move.

What else have I learned about Paris? She once said that as a little girl she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, until she realized she could just buy a bunch of animals. She shares the same first name with her current boyfriend, Paris Lastis. (I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that she’s with him for love and not because it’s easy to remember his name.)

Most recently, Paris has been embroiled in a controversy over a hamburger commercial. Apparently some people have a problem with a scantily-clad Paris frolicking with a water hose as she soaps and rinses a black Bentley. In understand that at some point she actually takes a bite out of the hamburger and utters her signature tag line, “That’s hot”—two words no doubt destined to go down in history with such profound utterances as “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” or John Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Explaining why Paris was chosen for this particular commercial, a marketing rep summed it up by calling her “an intriguing cultural icon and the ‘it girl’ of the moment.”

I guess they just don’t make cultural icons like they used to.

Ron Cichowicz, vice president of development for Gateway Rehabilitation Center, is a Pittsburgh-based author and lecturer and luncheon speaker. If your business or organization would like to invite Ron to present a program on the “Positive Benefits of Humor” or other topics, contact him at roncichowicz27@comcast.net, or call (412) 885-4543.