According to legend, I was conceived in New York's Playboy Hotel. So although I wasn't pre-conceived to cross paths with Playboy, I guess I was down with the bunny since before Day 1.
With my creation story as inspiration, I thought it only made sense for me to want to marry a Playmate. For almost all of my teenage years, I wanted nothing more than to follow the footsteps of J. Howard Marshall, old dude extraordinaire and brief husband of Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith. I remember my exact thought process was along the lines of, "she can marry me for my money and I'll marry her for her body. It's a far trade."
(In hindsight, to say I was a bit misaligned in my thoughts on a healthy adult relationship would be an understatement. Yet for some reason no one pushed me back in the right direction. Maybe they thought I was joking. Anyway ...)
My odd fascination with Playboy continued while I was in the Army. While deployed to Bosnia in 1998, I started a very brief (read: three e-mail) correspondence with Miss October 1994 Jennifer Lavoie. I was so super excited to get an email from a Playmate while a few thousand miles from home. I think I even printed out the emails and hung them over my bunk. Next to making a 35-minute movie about alien invaders, my letter from Jenn Lavoie was the highlight of my Bosnia mission.
Shortly after leaving Bosnia and exiting the Army, I enrolled at FSU. Not knowing a thing about Tallahassee, I signed up to live in the dorms for my first year in college. Being a 22-year old freshman in a dorm full of 18-year olds would have completely sucked if not for meeting two people: my future apartment roommate Zheke Snow and future Playboy Coed of the Week and Road Rules contestant Mary Beth Decker.
While Zheke Snow has little Playboy affiliation that I know of, Mary Beth and I were friends for her one semester at FSU. She roomed on my floor, we shared Olive Garden, and I also snuck her drinks at Potbelly's bar on our first night in Tallahassee. On that balmy Tallahassee night in August 1999, Mary Beth drove me to Potbelly's in her Mustang and we talked about Tom Green, Pearl Jam, and how she planned to eventually get a boob job because dresses didn't fit her small-chested frame.
After only a few months at Florida State, Mary Beth transferred to Texas A&M, where she told me all of her friends from high school went. Lo and behold, in 2003, shortly before I graduated, I saw a familiar face on Playboy.com. Mary Beth had not only gotten her boob job, but changed her hair color from blond to brunette and although she was cute before, her new look made her Playboy model pretty. A few quick internet searches later, I also found out she was on MTV's Road Rules and made a name for herself in reality television. I guess because she wasn't at Florida State for very long, no one in Tallahassee made a big deal of it. But I thought it was cool. We shared cheese sticks.
Playboy girls and I drifted apart after my brief friendship with Mary Beth. In 2004, Playboy made a brief visit to Tallahassee to capture a few pictures for their regular "Girls of ACC" feature. Despite having classes with hundreds, if not thousands of girls at Florida State, I didn't have any classes with Playboy's FSU representatives. I did however shop at the local record store where Playboy took several of the girls' pictures. Sadly, that record store (Vinyl Fever Tallahassee) is no longer open, leaving the Playboy pictorial as one of the few reminders of the place where I could find obscure albums without having to wait five to ten days for delivery.
I went through a Playboy drought from 2004 to 2010. Although I interviewed one-time-Playboy model-now-porn star Angela McLin on my old site, blogged about one-time Playmate of the Year Carmella DeCesare's local charity bowling event, and even saw CJ Gibson, sister of December 2005 Playmate Raquel Gibson, at a Tampa beach bar, Mary Beth was still the only Playboy model I knew in the flesh.
My Playboy drought finally ended in February 2011 when I met cover girl and then-Tampa Breeze Lingerie Football Player Mikayla Wingle. While working as Social Media Adviser and Special Projects Coordinator for All-Stars Wrestling, I learned the Girls of the LFL were going to be featured in Playboy. After discovering who the Tampa Breeze girl was and finding her contact info, I coordinated for Mikayla to visit All-Stars Wrestling, sign autographs, and even cameo on the local shock jock drive-time radio show.
After exchanging emails and tweets with Mikayla for a few weeks, we finally met at the radio station prior to her going on the air. While we sat in the green room - which by the way wasn't green - we hit it off and even kinda became quick friends. Mikayla made her appearance on the radio show and then re-met with me and we headed off to the wrestling event. While there, we took some awesome pictures and watched the show, making jokes, cheering, and booing the wrestlers along the way.
Before she left, Mikayla told me she worked at a bar in a Tampa suburb and invited me out to visit whenever she was on shift. After her visit to ASW, I visited her bar once a month to say hello, grab a beer, and catch up on her career.
About a month ago, I learned Mikayla was following in the footsteps of my previous Playboy pal Mary Beth Decker and making an appearance on reality TV. But Mikayla wasn't going to be on a seldom-watched obscure MTV show, she was going for the gusto and appearing on the one of the granddaddies of reality shows, Survivor. So far, she is doing well. Several weeks into the season she is still on the island, making more friends than enemies, and gaining fans and followers by the bushel.
Sometimes it's weird meeting people who have been in Playboy. I know it's a great career milestone for models, but as I get older it becomes less exciting of an accomplishment. Although I am proud of them, especially if I know them personally, I am no longer that teenager who wanted nothing more than to marry a Playmate.
These days, I'm not the type of person who will pose with a woman in a one-off meeting (unless it's Reese Witherspoon, then all bets are off). However, if she is a fun person with a kick-ass sense of humor and she is wholly enamored by the power of the afro then you can bet your sweet bunny ears we will be taking plenty of pics.
And, if by chance, she ends up on a reality TV show, you can also guarantee I'll be tuning in to support my friend on there as well.
