What Sort Of Man Reads The Cover Of Cosmo?

When I was a golf caddie I used to forecaddie on the 15th hole, take out one of the golfers' wedges, and hit range balls that had errantly made their way to the 15th back to the range. When I was a school teacher, I got to power trip by commanding kids to spit out their gum. When I was a magazine editor, I got to pig out for free at PR soirees. As a retail bookseller, I get to peruse the covers of hundreds of magazines each week before putting them out on the racks. Every job has its small perks.

Fridays are great because that's when all the gossip rags come out, so I can quickly catch up on all the pertinent celeb news with glances at various covers. I learn that Katie is desperately trying to get out of her prison-marriage to Tom, or, the next week, or sometimes even the same week, different mag, I learn that Katie and Tom have never been more in love. I feel I've lived through every step of the way with Kendra and her pregnancy and first few months as a mother. I've ping-ponged back and forth with Jennifer and her romantic disappointments. Just from cover photos and headlines, I've learned I hate Kate Gosselin. I love checking out the woodworking magazines every month because their cover models, white males, 40+, balding, zero fashion sense, myopic, in need of diets, are so incongruous compared to all the other cover models of all the other magazines (even the ice fishing magazines--yes, and yes plural--seem to put a little thought into putting semi-hunky ice fishermen [could they be re-touched models?] on their covers). Hip Hop Weekly, which I swear for a few months, despite its name, was a bi-weekly, informs me of the latest trials--literal--of all my favorite rappers I've never heard of. Heeb, the Jewish humor magazine, makes me laugh but also feel very protective due to the angry Jewish (I assume) guy who comes in every once in a while and scolds us for carrying such an offensive magazine (my former boss was the Picasso of dealing with such irate customers; she walked the guy around the magazine section and politely pointed out that we carry magazines that offend all sorts of people; we're an equal opportunity offender). I marvel at the chutzpah (and continued existence) of New Beauty magazine, a periodical devoted solely to the subject of cosmetic enhancement.

But until we start carrying a Bob Dylan daily magazine, or Bacon Illustrated (you laugh, there's now a magainze--Culture [get it?]--dedicated solely to cheese [somebody sound the cheese alarm!]), my favorite magazine arrival each month has to be Cosmopolitan. To look inside the magazine would be overkill: the cover each month provides all the entertainment one man needs. The folks there must be walking conceptual thesauri, because from what I can tell, every month they run the same articles, but the cover headlines are always slightly different. Basically, it's lose the fat and have incredible sex (not that there's anything wrong with those activities, but come on, month after month? can't we just learn about Natalie Portman's wood-working or ice-fishing skills once in a while?). I swear every month there's some sort of "17 Things That Will Drive Him Wild In Bed" article. Now I've long been on record as offering my precious time--gratis--to be the so-called "lab rat" for these articles (surely, Cosmo must apply the scientific method to such articles: "No, not that. Nope, nothing. Yes. Oh yes. Write that one down, quick. That's definitely one more incredible thing you can do with your ear lobe that will drive him bonkers in bed"), but I'm still waiting for a reply.

This month's cover (above) is nothing new, outside of boasting just about the most normal picture of Lady Gaga I've seen. But what caught my eye, and my mind, as this is the first Cosmo cover I've thought about for more than thirty seconds, is that "50 Things To Do Butt Naked." Where to begin? Would any reader of Cosmo, supposedly someone in the market for 37 Naughty Things To Do With A Dictionary That Will Make Him Your Minion For Life, actually need a list of things to do naked? Does anybody? Shower, sleep, have sex, pick up a couple extra bucks posing for drawing classes and--if you're one of those people to be found at nudist camps--play a lot of volleyball? What else? Not what else is there (granted, human imgaination is pretty boundless), but what else of interest? Oh, thanks Cosmo, I never thought about crocheting, doing my taxes, or frying bacon (look out for those greasy splashes!) in the buff. Draw the curtains, honey. Or, better yet, open those curtains wide! I certainly hope the fiftieth thing to do is sit around and make up silly lists. I expect, in the interest of fair play and safety, next month Cosmo will run an article about the five things you should never, ever, do naked. I would think wood-working with table saws.

Then there's that "butt naked." Seems to me it should be "buck naked." Butt naked sounds either redundant or, if you think about it, possibly mis-leading. Butt naked could refer to anyone merely in the act of shooting a moon, no? Buck naked sounds truer--stark. Turns out, after a little investigating, the is it butt or buck naked debate has been going on for a long time. Nobody, as usual, knows for sure where when how the phrase(s) originated or which came first, though each one has its supporters, so to speak. I prefer buck. But I can see why Cosmo would leap at the chance to put the word butt on its cover. Something tells me if those ice-fishing magazines ever ran a similar article, they'd go with buck.

Enough. Back to work on my magnum opus: fifty things to do with spit out gum that will drive her wild in the ice-fishing shack.