2003-06-20 - 12:57 p.m.
MY PLAYBOY
Now, finally, I can tell you something that I have been keeping under wraps. I know it shocks you that I do not tell you everything immediately but I promised Mr. Philately that I would not tell you until after my father figured it out and it took a little longer than I thought it would. (It also took my mother�s help. Sometimes marital duties are strange.) Anyway, take a moment to get over your shock and then pull your chair closer because, even after I tell you, this item probably should stay under wraps. Literally. You see it involves Mr. Philately and �Playboy.� Yes, THAT �Playboy.� The magazine �Playboy.� The one I am sure Mr. Philately has read before but only for the articles, just as he has only seen the movie �Charlie�s Angels� for the special effects (and no, my dearest daughters, we are not going to speculate about which special effects�do you hear me, Kat?).
Now that the brown wrapper is off the July issue (or, preferably, still on. After all, I have young impressionable minds in this house), the truth can be told. Hearing the truth is preferable to having to find it out for yourself, although I have not heard my father complaining, at least not very much. (I have not yet spoken with my mother so she has had no chance to complain.) It is not every day that my father�s son-in-law mails him a �Playboy� magazine and requests that he search through it (although my father�s mother-in-law did once give him a pornographic book to read but that�s a story for another time). In fact, I doubt it will ever happen again.
But I will spare you. You can hear it from me. You need not scour the issue to find it for yourself. Something of value to Mr. Philately is in �Playboy.� No, it is not me and it is not either of the children. �Playboy� has as much interest in middle-aged, heterosexual women as middle-aged, heterosexual women have in �Playboy.� Perhaps �Playboy� has even less�if that is possible. As for the children, well, Day-Hay thinks the idea of �Playboy� is gross (because she has taste) and Kat would have nothing to do with it either.
Believe it or not, Mr. Philately has attained an honor to which many a geeky stamp collector has aspired. His beloved stamps, photocopies of his very own, personally collected stamps, some gems of his collection, are featured in �Playboy� and the magazine identifies those fine specimens as his. Who would have thought that �Playboy� would ever call a philatelist, simply because he was a philatelist, and ask to feature his stamps? Who would have thought that they also would credit those stamps to him and print his name right there on the page? Who would have thought when Mr. Philately began to collect not just stamps, nerdy as that can be, but revenue stamps, which are even nerdier, the heights to which he would rise? Who would have thought that his marijuana tax stamp collection, the one that wins him medals at philatelic exhibitions would also bring him this (cough, cough) glory?
So, those of you who still doubt that marriage is an adventure, heed my tale. First, you marry a man. Next, you discover he is a .......a philatelist. Then, sometime more than fifteen years later comes this. You find out that you are married to a.....a......a....a PLAYBOY! But by then you are committed (or will be shortly as soon as three people sign off on it.)
My Playboy, I think I�ll keep him.
LAST YEAR: Timing Matters
TWO YEARS AGO: in Washington, D.C.�no entry
IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM:
Macho, Macho Man
What Might Have Been
Evil Canadians
The Small Stuff
The Dump
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
