Hanging with Hef

Playboy magazine always had a way of popping up; pardon the pun, throughout my tender, formative years. In fact, my first real find from dumpster diving was a huge stash of Playboys some fool had, obviously, mistakenly thrown away. Because when I was an eight year-old boy, it was basically unimaginable that anyone would toss a single Playboy magazine away, let alone a couple of dozens.

My buddies and I were experienced excavators when it came to dumpster diving. There was always a definite sense of ‘you got to know when to hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em’ because there was some pretty horrifying shit in those dumpsters. And dumpster diving was definitely a seasonal affair; late fall, winter and early spring. In summer, we would resort to quick recon missions because the stench was unbelievable. Usually, it was a two-man operation, one man to hold the lid up as the second man did a quick scan over the edge at the contents. The entire mission took about thirty seconds because you had to hold your breath the entire time. Anything short of a solid gold coffee table was quickly deemed irretrievable.

Anyway, here Joey and I were in a dumpster, knee deep in other people’s shit, one bright, cool spring afternoon when I spotted a titty. Instantly, my ninja-like reflexes kicked in as I snatched the picture from under a bag of garbage. It wasn’t just one titty but a pair of titties, and they are attached to an entire Playboy magazine. Score! I’m holding the magazine up over my head like I just won the Super Bowl. I’m going to Disney World!

Then Joey quickly dove on the spot where I found the magazine and started tossing Playboy after Playboy out from under the garbage bags. There must have been two dozen of them. We were dancing around like a couple of prospectors who had just hit the mother lode!

But our elation quickly turned to panic. Where were we going to stash out treasure? It’s not like you can just go waltzing in your house with a dozen Playboys under your arm when you're eight years old. We had to find a spot and quick. Paranoia was fucking with us, so we had to get the magazines out of plain sight in a hurry.

After several misses, we finally found a spot on the other side of a big, wooden privacy fence. The fence was behind our apartment complex and separated the complex from a big, empty field. We put the magazines in the corner of the fence, which was at the bottom of a small, steep hill. The spot was perfect because, even to notice the magazines; someone would have to climb the fence or walk all the way across the field. We had the magazines all to ourselves. And for the next few days, we lived like kings surrounded by our harem.

Then it started to rain. And it rained, and it rained, and it rained. By the time it quit, our spoils were just that, spoiled. There was nothing left but a pile of mud and pulp. It was such a cruel tragedy. Miss June, Miss July, Miss February; all gone. All were taken from us much too young. It was a short ceremony with a few tears, but we found the strength to move on.