The Adventures of Jorge O'Malley

Growing up my dad always traded and bartered. He is a hustler so to speak. And just as he learned the craft from his father, I learned it from him.

Around age 13 and not long after discovering there was something about girls I liked, I was presented with the opportunity to barter an iguana for a poster depicting a beautiful blonde wearing a red bathing suit. I didn’t know who she was, nor did I care. Her big cheeky smile was more personality than I found in girls my own age and I quickly began offering up my vicious pet in exchange.

With the means to make the acquisition, my only problem was what to do with my work of art. The man who taught me the skills I used to obtain the poster was also a Church of Christ deacon while my mother spent considerable time trying to postpone my interest in the opposite sex. Unlike other kids my age I wasn’t worried the poster would induce a “birds and the bees” lecture because, luckily for me, that discussion was a sin and my parents would never risk their salvation in order to keep me disease free. Regardless, my mother was prone to taking things she didn’t like and tossing them out in the trash. I’ve owned more Motley Crue Shout at the Devil albums than anyone in history. The last thing I wanted was for Farrah to go the way of Vince, Tommy, Nikki and Mick. For three days I pondered, plotted and planned my strategy.

How was I going to get away with this? Which parent would be more receptive? What angle would I use to persuade them? How would I save her if I failed?

After asking around and doing a little research, I discovered the girl in my poster was Farrah Fawcett and she used to be on the show Charlie’s Angels. Anyone my parents’ age recognized the image immediately and produced bright smiles upon seeing it. I soon realized that no one considered the image vulgar because of its nostalgic quality. And in that nostalgia I had found my angle.

Without asking and on my own accord, I hung the poster next to the gun rack in my room; carefully rolling the tape and sticking it to the back side as to avoid damaging Farrah’s tan on the front. My next step was to get my father in the room first because his approval would seal the deal. When my dad answered my bogus summons and stepped into the room, he immediately forgot why he was there and said, “Where did you get that?”

I explained the stringent negotiations involved in the poster’s procurement and rambled endlessly about Charlie’s Angels, 1976, Lee Majors, and Texas. And when I exhausted my knowledge of related trivia, my dad smiled and walked out the door. With his back turned as he walked out he simply asked, “Has your mom seen it?”

Did he approve? Was he going to get his sinnin’ stick to smite me? Unsure, I stayed in my room and tried to make out what my parents were saying two rooms away. Dad soon came back with mom in tow and a smirk on his face. Caught by surprise as she entered my room and not knowing what to say, mom smiled. And like my dad, she asked about the poster’s origins. After seeing their smiles, I was glad to talk more about my knowledge of 1976 because I knew the upper hand was mine.

My parents agreed to let me keep the poster with one exception. My mother required that I take it down if we had company and I happily obliged. I’m still not sure if it was my powers of persuasion or Farrah’s smile that convinced my parents to let me keep her around. But if I had to guess, it was a little of both.

During the years that followed, I obtained more posters including a life-size photo of Marilyn Monroe that I eventually traded to an officer of the law in exchange for looking the other way, but I’ll save that one for later.