Now I've Got Your Attention

ScarlettJohansson's SAT scores. French deodorant. The safety rating of a FerrariTestarossa.

Some things justdon't matter.

Like the back pageof the Swimsuit Issue. People get the magazine, savor the pictures, get to thelast page, see (ugh) words--and go back the way they came. The headline mightas well read, begin flipping backward. I've written grocery lists that getbetter readership. One year I wrote the column in German, and six peoplenoticed.

Even my bestfriends don't read it. "Really?" my friend Skybox said to me last year."You write in the Swimsuit Issue?"

"Yes, youmollusk. Every year for the last seven years."

"Guess Imissed it."

This is a man whonotices when Petra Nemcova has a new mole, but the column he misses?

Not this year.This year, I had a plan. You're looking at it.

Let's see youignore this, beeyotch.

I could writeanything here, and you'd read it.

The square root of101,378.56 is 318.4.

Moose meat is goodwith ketchup.

My grandfather hada goiter. See? You're still reading.

My only complaintsare 1) I didn't get to do the typesetting and 2) we couldn't get a model namedPaige. Then you could've literally turned to the back Paige. Instead we foundBrooklyn Decker. Sue me.

She makes historyhere, of course. Sportswriters have written their columns on BlackBerries,napkins and men's room stall doors, but never before across a woman's nudebody.

Can't wait to hearmy buddies this year. They'll relish every conjunction, linger over thedangling participles, sigh at my conclusion. And I know exactly what they'llsay: "Does it come in Braille?"

PHOTO

BRIAN LOVELY (DECKER)

PHOTO

PETER READ MILLER (REILLY)