Bad Habits Page 12

  “Jenny, there is nothing there.”

  All the girls joined me and we stood there in silence until I heard Miss March yell, “Holy shit, there is a guy standing there holding his baby to us.”

  Suddenly, they were all seeing the man with the same exact description.

  Miss July shouted, “The baby is wearing a white dress!”

  Then I knew we were all seeing the same freaking thing.

  Miss December asked, “Should we try to talk to it?”

  “They’re dead,” I said.

  “Well, if they’re dead, why is he holding his baby up to us?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe tell them to go to the light or something.”

  “Go to the light! Go to the light!” she shouted. “You would think his arms would be tired from holding the baby up so long.”

  “Let’s just go,” I said. “I’m so freaked out.” We all began to walk away when suddenly we were surrounded by about sixty different kinds of dead people.

  “What the fuck is happening?” shouted Miss June.

  I responded, “Um, you guys are seeing this too, right?”

  “Yes!” they all shouted. All the dead people looked as if they had been shipwrecked.

  Now imagine fourteen Playmates holding on to one another for dear life walking naked through a Hawaiian jungle. “You guys, I’m sure we’re almost done tripping our balls off.” I was trying to calm them down. “I feel like we’ve been on this for fifteen hours.”

  One of the girls looked at her watch and said, “It’s been only twenty minutes.”

  “What?!” I shouted.

  I couldn’t even imagine what would happen to us two hours from then when in twenty minutes I had had sex with a tree and was seeing dead people.

  I figured if we just kept walking, we were bound to walk into something. And something was exactly what we walked into. Something really, really bad and totally fucking insane.

  Slowly, we lifted our heads to take in the sight that stood before us.

  Standing in front of us was a fifty-foot Grim Reaper.

  I wondered, “Did we die in the bush back there, or did Hannibal kill us on the beach? Is that why we’re seeing dead people, because we’re part of them?”

  Miss December whispered, “I think I just peed.”

  Miss July responded, “No, I just peed on you. I’m so scared.”

  I looked over at my friends to grab one of their hands and run for it but saw them lying lifeless sprawled all over the beach.

  I rubbed my eyes and opened them. This time, to my horror, their limbs were detached and strewn all over the beach, legs sticking up in the sand and boobs floating in the ocean.

  I rubbed my eyes again and my friends ran past me at full speed, screaming for their lives, boobs jiggling everywhere. It was starting to feel like a National Lampoon version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

  I was still frozen. I stood dead-on face-to-face with this fucking crazy thing. I remember thinking, It’s obviously dark and evil, so the best thing I can do is scream the Our Father prayer.

  I immediately started to scream the Our Father as loud as I could and with the strongest belief in God I could muster to make this thing go away. About halfway through the prayer, poof, it was gone.

  And so were my friends.

  The two issues I was having at this point were insane dehydration and the man with his baby still fucking following me. I kept turning around and yelling, “Go to the light!”

  If you thought my basement was scary, this shit in the jungle was epic. I couldn’t wait to tell JoJo!

  When I got to the beach, a few girls were there sitting by the water still holding on to each other and another two were scissoring. I was able to see now and they all looked pretty awful, like they had stumbled home from a monthlong walk of shame and were out of their minds.

  “Where is Hannibal Lecter?” I asked.

  “We have no idea.”

  I sat down next to them, and when I turned my head to the right, I realized a chubby Hawaiian ghost was sitting right next to me.

  “Do you guys see this chubby Hawaiian guy sitting next to me right now?”

  They leaned forward and looked.

  “Yup.”

  He didn’t seem to be bothering us, so I let him sit next to me. But when the dead guy holding his baby showed up on the beach again, I had just about had it. I stood up, trying to balance with my legs crossed and my hands covering my nipples. The other girls became self-aware and immediately crossed their legs and cupped their boobs too.

  Miss June fell over, tits up.

  “Dude, we are cracked out of our minds, so please stop looking at us like that and stop holding up your baby to us like we are supposed to do something with it. Go to the light like Carol Anne did.”

  The dead guy holding the baby still wouldn’t leave.

  “Let’s try to get back to our hotel. It’s only a matter of time before every dead ghost on this island finds us, and I don’t think I can handle the Grim Reaper again.”

  Miss December then shouted out her brilliant idea. “What if we waved down a boat to take us back to the United States?”

  After we walked for what felt like four hours but turned out to be ten minutes, I saw what looked like a street next to the beach up ahead.

  Miss February walked over to it and touched it. “It feels like a street.”

  “Thank God, it’s a street! Let’s follow the road because all the hotels are pretty much on one street.”

  Just as we were about to transition into a new setting (meaning the street), another wave of E hit us, causing all of us to lie down immediately.

  I was looking up into the sky, thinking now about how fucking amazing I felt. I couldn’t stop chewing on my cheeks for some reason. It felt so good.

  The stars looked like they were right in front of me. Just as I thought I actually might touch a star, dead man holding the baby blocked my view.

  “Aw, dude, please. Just fuck off. Or go follow Miss June. I think she likes you.”

  I tried to tune in to my third eye to see if he was trying to telepathically say anything. All I picked up was “Please take my baby.”

  If ghosts are real, then this was pretty sad. I’m not sure why he didn’t go to the light with his baby when he died, but he was really barking up the wrong set of trees with this group.

  Even though we all felt as if we had lost the ability to stand, I knew we had to keep moving. We all held on to one another as we made our way down the street.

  Then Miss June grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. “Look, I have knees!” she said, pointing at them.

  “Oh my God, so do I. But mine can’t move,” Miss July said with a surprised look as she lifted her stiff leg to demonstrate her disability.

  “We all have knees, you moron,” said Miss December as she kicked the back of Miss July’s legs, causing them to bend.

  I guessed that Miss December was the most sober because I was just about to join in on the knee discovery myself.

  As we walked, all the girls, including myself, after regaining the ability to use our legs (and knees, apparently), suddenly lost the ability to speak. We couldn’t form a sentence if we tried.

  Miraculously, though, we made it back to our condo. I don’t know how, but we eventually walked all the way there.

  I woke up the next day feeling awful.

  To make matters worse, I had chewed the insides of my mouth so bad that I had about seventeen canker sores, and when I got home, my boyfriend thought I had acquired an STD.

  I was so completely freaked out by this experience that I had trouble sleeping alone for years.

  Even today, as I type this book in my dark bedroom, I can’t help but think that maybe the dead man holding the baby is standing next to me.

  Eek! Go to the light!

  23

  There Is Only So Much Bleach a Girl Can Take

  My reign of Playmate of the Year 1994 was coming to a close.
I was excited to finally be able to go from forty-volume bleach to twenty-volume bleach. I had fun on tour, but I was ready to evolve past the superficially sexy persona I was forced to portray.

  But first, I had a few more dinners to attend as PMOY. Usually these dinners consisted of men who were “distributors” of the magazine in other countries. And time and time again I had to listen to the same crap that came out of their mouths.

  “My wife ignores me.”

  To which I had no problem replying, “Well, maybe she’s upset about something you’re doing or not doing.”

  One dork replied with a thick French accent, “I do nothing wrong. I take good care of her. I don’t know what else I could do.”

  I replied with a thick American accent, “Well, for starters, why don’t you take your hand off my fucking knee and sleep in her bed tonight?”

  I finally had to come up with a creative way to keep these men from hitting on me at those dinners. It would make me so incredibly sad to watch their pathetic egos try to woo us Playmates while their wives were at home working hard to raise their kids. Somebody had to be out in the war zone defending these women. I knew I would want the same. So at the next dinner I had to attend, I came up with a plan that would no doubt turn these boys off.

  I was told to sit between Receding Hair and Lazy Eye. So I bunny-hopped to my seat and shook hands with both of them. They always smelled the same (kind of like bologna) and had the same leering look in their eye, which made me want to puke up my lunch on their heads.

  “Hello, hello!” Receding Hair said.

  “Hi!” I responded like a sweet, innocent bunny. Then I turned to my right and put out my paw. “Hi, what’s your name?”

  “Frank. My name is Frank. It’s very nice to meet you. You are very beautiful.” He then tickled my paw with his finger much like one does in eighth grade.

  I did a fake giggle while holding on to his hand and turned it over to purposely call out his wedding ring. “Wow, that’s a beautiful wedding band. Is your wife’s band just as beautiful?”

  Lazy Eye Frank replied, “Um … uh … yeah.”

  I was on a mission. I wanted to make these men pay for their sins.

  Mind you, we Playmates weren’t helping the situation by being there dressed to the nines. We were like pieces of chocolate to a table full of PMSing women.

  Then I felt a nudge on my leg from Receding Hair Man, which was quickly followed with a hand trying to go up my skirt.

  I’m not exaggerating. This actually happened a lot. Some girls didn’t mind. I minded. I minded all the time and didn’t put up with it. I had so much self-worth set in me at a young age, and I thank my parents every day for it. Otherwise, I would have had Receding Hair performing a body cavity search on me at this dinner.

  Instead, I quickly kicked Receding Hair’s hand away and decided to utilize my weapon of mass destruction that I came up with in order to get these men to stop their sexual assaults.

  I leaned over to Receding Hair and said, “Do you want to know what makes me so happy?”

  “Diamonds?” he replied.

  “No, silly.... What makes me happy is Jesus,” I said in the most upbeat Christian voice. “Ever since I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, my life has become blissful.”

  The look on his face was like watching an inflatable balloon lose all of its air. His “I might get pussy tonight” smile quickly turned into a foul grimace. The best way to describe it is the look on your husband’s face when you farted in your ninth month of pregnancy: shocked and grossed out.

  My weapon of mass destruction worked.

  And, I proved that Jesus is not an aphrodisiac.

  Receding Hair turned the other direction, locked eyes with Miss May’s ass and quickly made his way over to her like she was turkey on Thanksgiving.

  I didn’t waste a beat. I turned to my right to work on Frank and his lazy eye.

  “So, Frank, have you ever experienced love on a level that makes your entire body tremble with joy?”

  Frank’s smile grew and the eyebrow above his lazy eye pointed up to the heavens. “Are you asking me about making love?” he asked.

  “No, Frank. I’m asking you about a love that is so deep and great that if you had it in your heart, you would never have to look elsewhere for gratification again.”

  “Wow,” he replied. “Where can I get some of that?”

  “You can find it in Jesus and in His Father. I’m sure you’ve heard of him before. He sometimes goes by The Creator.”

  Frank sat in silence. For the first time that night, he was looking at my eyes and not my cleavage. I decided to pound him into the ground with some more verbiage.

  “Even though Jesus is all-forgiving, I don’t think your wife would be as understanding that you are trying to seduce a girl thirty years younger than you.”

  “Did my wife hire you to spy on me?”

  “No, Frank. I work for Jesus.”

  He stood up, threw his napkin down, and walked to the bar.

  Mission accomplished. Who knew Jesus was such a great cockblock?

  As the months went on, I broke two men’s noses with my right hook and got one guy fired from his job. It was clearly time for me to go through my own metamorphosis and trade in my bunny ears for wings. So I closed my eyes and made a wish. (After years of reading spiritual books, I have come to realize those wishing moments were actually me putting out an intention. Oprah would have been proud.)

  I made an intention to find a job that would allow me to show all of my colors. I wanted to be my real, funny, down-to-earth, goofy self. I wanted to break the mold of the sexy stereotype. I knew being sexy had a shelf life of twenty years in Hollywood (if you’re lucky), and I knew I was more than implants.

  As serendipity would have it, I found out that MTV was having an audition for hosts for a new dating show called Singled Out. I couldn’t think of a better job that would allow me to be all of the things I wanted to be. I asked my manager to call and get me into the audition. I had a good feeling about this, but I needed to get in the door. When my manager called me back, he said MTV told him that there wasn’t a chance in hell they would ever hire a Playmate.

  I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t understand how they wouldn’t at least let me give it a shot. So I took matters into my own hands and crashed the audition under an alias. I was determined to show them that there was a chance in hell they could hire me and I was worthy of this job.

  By the time the fifteenth callback happened, I was outed. They knew I was that Playmate who wanted to audition weeks prior.

  Fortunately, as time passed, MTV saw that not only was I capable of the job, but I did a great job portraying myself as a self-deprecating, psychotic cheerleader who knew how to control horny men while always rooting for the girls. Something, ironically, that I learned while touring for Playboy.

  On the seventeenth callback, I got the job. I couldn’t believe it. I called my mom and told her the great news.

  “Mom, I did it! I got a job on MTV!”

  “I don’t know what that is. I don’t understand why you don’t just take Vanna White’s job.”

  God bless my mother, but I knew that this self-deprecating, psychotic cheerleader was ready to come out blazing and would soon gross out men all over America.

  I was tired of being one-dimensional. I wanted to fart and pick my nose while wearing hot pants. I wanted to confuse the masses—especially men. I wanted to introduce them to a new female kind of thinking called “I don’t give a shit what you think.”

  I guess it worked, because halfway through the first season of Singled Out, men were coming up to me telling me I was too hot to be so disgusting and I needed to stick to just being sexy because it was confusing their brains and their masturbation sessions.

  By far, this is one of the best compliments I have ever received in show business. I knew that somehow, I was changing the way that women wanted to be perceived. I was leading a charge of women who
hoped to prove that we can stink up a bathroom just as much as men can.

  24

  Oh No, My Mom Is Going to Hell!

  My mom and dad got divorced when I was twenty-three. Of course it was difficult on me considering how hard I worked to make sure that they were happy, but what I would soon come to realize is that sometimes divorce can make people even happier. Twelve years ago, my mom reconnected with and remarried her high-school sweetheart, a man named Tom. They love each other deeply but have never been able to fully experience utopia because of the difficulties they have gone through to stay devout Catholics after their respective divorces.

  Let me explain this insanity:

  The Catholic Church says that if you are a divorced Catholic, you are living in sin and are therefore not permitted to go to communion. As a Catholic, one of the requirements to avoid excommunication is to go to confession and communion once a year. Well, if you’re a divorced Catholic and can’t go to communion, after your first year of divorce, you are automatically excommunicated. This also means, of course, that you’re living in sin and will go to Hell when you die. However, there is a loophole, which states that whichever spouse dies last gets to go to Heaven again.

  These are rules according to the Catholic Church.

  Shocking, stupid, and true.

  How they can throw my mom, my stepdad, and my dad in Hell with Hitler makes me want to protest outside the Vatican. My mom and stepdad have never missed one Sunday Mass, and both have to sit and watch everyone in the church take communion while they sit there thinking about what Hell will be like for them. I’m sure sometimes they are also praying that their exes run into the Grim Reaper before they do so they can ensure anew their tickets to Heaven.

  After years of watching my parents’ struggle to remain devout Catholics, I decided to intervene and buy them a book for Christmas that I thought could help them.

  It is called All Lutherans Go to Heaven.

  25

  Belly Cries to Belly Laughs

  After watching a horrific, circa 1970 child-birthing video during Sex Ed in seventh grade, I never in a million years could have believed I would be capable of delivering a baby. I was also scared by the enormous amount of pubes that woman had in the video. Don’t get me wrong—I’m known for my fair share of roadkill pussy, but this woman had an ape between her legs, not a squirrel.