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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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February
/ March 2007 Contest Results |
An Issue
Of Disappearing Swimsuits
By Mary Bufe, Missouri
People work from home for all sorts of reasons. Some like wearing their
pajamas to work. Others wish to avoid office politics.
I have a more personal reason. It means I'm the only person home when
the new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue arrives.
As a wife and mother of two teenage sons, this is important to me. It
enables me to fulfill one of woman's noblest callings: the censorship of
her family's reading materials.
I've got my system down pat. When the issue arrives, I review its
contents immediately. Then, Exacto knife in hand, I carefully remove any
pages I find objectionable.
To determine which pages stay and which ones go, I rely on prevailing
Community Standards. In other words, would anyone I know be caught dead
wearing a given suit down at the community pool? A bikini made entirely of
guitar picks? Not likely. A single, strategically placed iPod? I don't
think so.
When I'm finished, I take the remaining five- or six-page issue and do
what any good wife and mother would do. I hide it.
Days pass. Eventually, one of the Bufe males casually broaches the
subject.
"Hey, did the new Sports Illustrated come?" they'll ask.
"Hmmm," I'll respond thoughtfully. "Not yet."
And just to be clear -- it's not a lie if you are trying to save
someone's soul.
As proof, I have here no less an authority than the 1905 edition of The
Catholic Girl's Guide which, on page 421, clearly states, "The first
duty of every Christian wife is to scrupulously shun everything likely
to prove dangerous to purity, including worldly periodicals, sensational
newspapers and salacious literature, including, but not limited to the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue."
So, yes, I'm basically just following church doctrine. Even so, after
about the tenth time someone asks, I start to feel guilty.
"Hey guys, the new swimsuit issue is out!" I'll finally announce one
day. "But, I'm telling you, its popularity is sure waning. It's down to
eight pages this year. And there's not even a cover!"
You know someday they'll thank me.
It just won't be this year. Starting in early February, I stood guard as
usual each day, waiting for the mailman. But day after day, no magazine
came. Finally last week, it hit me. We were victims of Swimsuit Issue
Theft.
Turns out, we are not alone. Sports Illustrated couldn't give me an
exact figure. "But every year I get calls from the same guys," a
magazine spokeswoman told me. "And they all swear their neighbors took
their copies."
Their 'neighbors?'
"Look, I'm no expert," I told her. "But I'm going to go out on a limb
and suggest these guys are all married. Just not to women as open-minded
as some of us."
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