The Playboy Puzzle and the Nekkid Lady Pen

When my dad celebrated his 30th birthday in 1971, he had seven children. I'm not sure if he was embarrassed by or proud of this accomplishment; someday I'll have to ask him. Regardless, my mom certainly had him beat. She had seven children by 28.

Anyway, when his 30th birthday rolled around, it was celebrated in typical Haislip fashion, with a big party in the back yard and loads of food and drink. I don't remember much of that party, but I remember in particular a couple of the gifts he received that day, likely from clueless friends who didn't know that small children were going to be present. Or maybe they did know and thought it would all the funnier. Dad had some weird friends.

One gift was a ballpoint pen that had a lady wearing a black swimsuit - and magically, the swimsuit disappeared when the pen was turned upright, leaving the lady completely nude. This astonishing conundrum of physics was one of the most fascinating things we had ever seen - Tim and Jim especially were puzzled by this enigma and insisted on making that swimsuit disappear so freakin' much I thought the pen was going to break.

The other gift was a 150-piece puzzle of a topless Playboy bunny. Thinking back, it was probably one of the dumbest ideas anyone in the Playboy organization ever came up with. What normal American male wants to take the time to put together a puzzle in order to catch a glimpse of a naked lady? Isn't that what the magazines are for? Anyway, my dad glanced at the box, shrugged, and tossed it to his kids to put together for him.

Long after the guests had gone home, six Haislip kids were bent over that puzzle, happy as clams to have a puzzle that had all the pieces intact, whether there were boobs on it or not. We would have had it put together even quicker if not for the intermittent wrestling matches between Tim and Jim as they fought over the naked lady pen. I don't recall my mom ever protesting that her kids were playing with essentially R-rated adult toys, except that perhaps she thought we were already beyond hope. At least sweet little Barbara was still in diapers, and Mom possibly had some vague notion that the youngest Haislip would end up relatively normal. Who knew what would become of the other six rugrats. It was probably that day that she decided she sure as hell wasn't birthing any more of them....