I own a toy stuffed pig in a bikini.

I am aware that nobody asked me if I own a toy stuffed pig in a bikini, or whether her name is Rhonda (it is). Somehow even the 1990 U.S. Census Long Form neglected this facet of my lifestyle. It is completely on my own initiative that I have decided to bring this up. Having acknowledged my sole responsibility for airing this issue, I should next probably clarify my use of the word "toy." I do not mean to imply that I, or anybody in my household, "plays" with Rhonda in any material way; that is, she doesn't wind up or get manipulated into different poses or get used as a token in some whimsical board game. No, Rhonda just sits on a shelf in our back room looking aesthetically suitable (your eyebrows may go up, but remember you've never seen our back room). Anyway, "toy" is probably a misleading term, but if I'd said "I own an ornamental stuffed pig in a bikini," I could hardly have hoped to be taken seriously. (Or perhaps that's not going to be an issue in any case.)

It was a recent family incident that prompted me to begin thinking hard about Rhonda. You see, her ambiguous magnetism was underscored when she attracted the attention of my brother, who was visiting from out of town. I was getting something out of a drawer in the back room, when from behind me I heard my brother's voice commenting, in an absolutely neutral -- almost disinterested -- tone, "You have a stuffed pig in a bikini." Well, the tone may have been ostensibly neutral, but with my sibling radar I heard loud and clear an emphatic, albeit implied, WHY DO at the beginning of that sentence. A question like that cannot be answered, of course; if the explanation isn't already obvious, none articulated could possibly help. But my brother's remark did emphasize anew for me the subjective nature of aesthetic taste. Nowadays, whenever I question anyone's preference in wallpaper, literature, music, etc., there is a voice in the back of my head reminding me that I own a stuffed pig in a bikini.

Rhonda caught my eye (like the Beach Boys song goes) when I was on my way to the cash register in a Hallmark store. I don't usually make it into the Hallmark stores much (and it occurs to me to wonder about all the various other items, analogous to Rhonda in their potential attractiveness to me, that have awaited me in vain between my infrequent visits to the card/gift shop). Fortunately for me (and, I like to think, for Rhonda), on this particular occasion my wife Hilary and I wanted to get a house gift for some people we didn't know very well, and so I stopped in on my way home from somewhere. Rhonda was (and is) the color of light pancake make-up, which she appears to have applied all over her body to conceal (no doubt to her mind improve on) her natural porcine hue. She's even added just a hint of blush on the cheeks. She has eyes that may actually be the same plastic parts used for the rounded black pegs in a "Mastermind" game set. Only the Mastermind pieces aren't topped with bundles of incongruously long yarn eyelashes. The ears are more the shape of flat footballs (I shall skirt the "pigskin" joke, if you don't mind) than I believe actual pig's ears (or, for that matter, proverbial sow's ears) to be. Her arms are banana-shaped and give the impression of being attached merely by velcro to her upper torso; they are, however, actually sewn on.

Which brings us to the bikini. Since Rhonda, like many non-bikini wearing stuffed animals, is virtually all upper-body, the bottom piece of her swimsuit practically touches the ground as she stands on her diminutive lower limbs. The upper piece of the bikini is notable for the fact that Rhonda's breasts (human, not pig style, incidentally) are physically part of it rather than part of her body. In fact they're completely sewn up inside the garment. The swimsuit is an always-in-vogue floral print in tropical colors, and there is really nothing more to tell you except that Rhonda has a seam all the way down the front of her head and body. It deviates once, to circle the front of her snout, and later, at the opportune moment, deepens to create a becoming navel.

Rhonda was with a display of other Rhondas, some of which had slightly different attire, as I recall. I was in a hurry, but I stopped in front of them and thought, "One of these would look good at home." I quickly but confidently selected Rhonda herself as the definitive one of whatever they were, and I headed out. It was only at home, as I matter-of-factly pulled her out of the bag with an insufficiently explanatory comment like "Oh, and I got this for us," that I realized that the appropriateness of Rhonda to our decor was intuitive only to me. And perhaps it had been a temporary and deluded insight at that, I feared, as Hilary and I looked her over together and I felt inclined to agree that maybe, you know, it had been an ill-advised purchase. I was almost on the verge of a "What was I thinking?" when my initial instinct reasserted itself. "I know she's kind of tacky," I concurred, "but there's something about her I like. We decided to put her provisionally on display in our back room and see if we felt affection or loathing for her in a month's time.

Needless to say, Rhonda has stayed. Both of us are unswerving in our fondness for her now, although Hilary tells me in her case it's mainly just because Rhonda is "a friend of yours." I think the thing for me is that Rhonda exudes some sort of naive innocence you rarely find among today's bikini-wearing ornamental animals. I can understand her using too much make-up in an overzealous effort to match her fashionable bikini. It's foolish of her, but it's part of growing up, after all. (I'm quite sure Rhonda is fairly young.) If all she's asking to frame her ingenuous life is a warm shelf that she can ornament, then I intend to provide it.