BYE BYE BIKINI GIRL

I'm no longer addicted to American Idol the way I was the first few seasons. I'd even given up watching auditions because they'd gotten so cruel. But this year I was promised I'd get to see real singers, so I watched a couple of the tryout episodes and was interested enough that I'm hanging in for a while longer.

I especially like roughneck Michael Sarver, who says his job is the fifth-most dangerous in the world. Okay, so he's not as hot as my last year's fave, David Cook, but he seems to be a nice, down-to-earth married guy with two kids. When he auditioned, Simon told him, "So you're the complete opposite of Ryan Seacrest."

The one night I admittedly love is Group Night. When it's all about drama and the singers seem to revert back to high school. But last night was definitely not Disney's High School Musical.

I'm not going to go through all the groups, because you can go read about them on the network's website and a gazillion other blogs today. But I am going to allow myself a bit of pleasure at watching Bikini Girl ousted. I swear, that girl puts the "M" and "E" in TEAM. Which is why it was totally appropriate that she was part of Team Diva.

For those who didn't watch her audition, she showed up in a bikini. And natch, high heels, because doesn't everyone wear stiletto spikes with their bikini? Kara and Paula were stunned. Kara told Bikini Girl that she didn't have the chops to sing the song and demonstrated. Which is when Bikini Girl shot back that Kara's version wasn't any better.

Randy and Simon, overcome with hormone overload, leaped to her defense and put her through to Hollywood. Paula got in the last word when she told her "Welcome to Hollywood. Next time come naked." (Okay, that was admittedly way snarky. But I loved it!)

But Bikini Girl wasn't finished yet. She wasn't leaving until she -- and I am NOT making this up! -- planted a big wet kiss on Ryan Seacrest's mouth and got him to jump into the swimming pool with her.

She was definitely in full Diva mode last night. If her ego wasn't larger than the planet Jupiter, I'd suspect that she'd realized she was in over her head. But for whatever reason, she deserted her group to go to bed early. When her team showed up the next morning to try to coax her into performing, she hid beneath the blankets and whined that she was tired and refused to get up.

So they left. Bikini Girl missed her official sign-in. And I -- and probably most of the women in America -- breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally gone.

But just like Freddy Kruger in all those Nightmare on Elm Street movies, or Glen Close in Fatal Attaction, suddenly she was back! (Too bad the girls on Team Diva hadn't thought to bring along a wooden stake.) Unlike the other members of her team, who were exhausted from rehearsing and looked it, Bikini Girl looked well rested, perfectly made-up, and had even taken time to iron her hair.

Naturally, she had lots of excuses, one being that she'd been tired from spending the day in high heels. I believe there might have been something about the dog eating her homework in her litany of complaints.

This time it didn't work. Even Simon voted her off. But proving sometimes Idol gets it right, Kara got to be the one to send her away.

And STILL she did not go!!

She smiled. And posed!

Really.

I swear.

Then, when everyone knows you're supposed to at least pretend to like your teammates, she closed with the comment: "They're just fake girls. They don't mean anything to me."

So, Bikini Girl isn't going to be America's new Idol. Although the job market's tough these days, I'm not overly worried about her future employment opportunities. Not as long as America needs pole dancers.

Bikini Girl's audition