What happens when washed up mom-rockers want to buy lots and lots of porn magazines? What about idiots who pretend to be washed up mom-rockers at two in the morning? Reflections on human behavior await you inside.

Milo Hayden

Rain poured out gutters of the porn shop that night; it ran across the rainbow-tinged pavement and into a storm drain clogged with leavings both deciduous and coniferous. Though the water failed to flow across the parking lot, the flow of customers was thick and coarse with ruffians of all types. Some might say our clientele that night was especially surly—that is, until Rod Stewart walked into the shop.

At least it looked like Rod Stewart. Maybe thirty years younger and with even shittier hair, wrapping his visage was a pair of gigantic Golden Girls sunglasses; perhaps the biggest I'd ever seen. He appeared rattled, as if shoved into the store by a group of friends after losing a bet. However, the camera outside had failed to detect forced coercion. Mr. Stewart was in the shop of his own volition, and boy was he nervous.

After making his way to the front counter, he offered his ID as a peace offering, a symbol that he meant no deceit or potential harm by his poor taste in masquerade. But before he could get it out, our security guard already had Rod pegged.

“No, it's ok. I know who you are.”

Shaken, the impostor made his way to the dirty magazine rack with the same nervous swagger.

Time passed, and the impersonator accumulated a hefty stack of porno mags indeed. Disjointedly making his way to the counter, he placed them on the edge and deflected all attempts made at small talk. Not being one to accept a breakdown in some potentially interesting discourse, I asked him embarrassing questions to goad him into explaining why he was dressed as the singer of D'you Think I'm Sexy.

After that failed, he collected his mountain of magazines and began a calm pace backwards with his hands out, as if he were protecting a group of innocent bystanders from an impending percussive blast. When he reached four or so paces, his right hand found the left seam of his wig, and his left hand met the left arm of his ridiculous Charles Nelson Reilley sunglasses.

With an equally CNR-esque dramatic flair, he ripped both from his head and exclaimed “I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE...IT'S ME”! It was the man we had thrown out a week prior for stealing—you guessed it—dirty magazines.

The security guard and I looked at each other. “I knew it was you,” he affirmed. “I said I knew it was… right when you walked in.”

Cover blown, he ran to the counter and placed both palms down on it, pleading for reinstatement to our shop, citing a “big misunderstanding” as the reason he was excommunicated in the first place. We told him to come back and talk to the owners about it.

The second the door shut, the security guard and I doubled over in hysteric laughter. We had to cut it short though, because the man had just come back in.

“Forgot my wig,” he said sheepishly. Red-faced and humiliated, anti-Rod left the store for the second time.

Sometimes, we are forced to ask ourselves how much is too much. Is dressing up as a late-seventies cum early-eighties pop singer in order to wangle pictures of naked women writhing around on a bearskin rug too much? Clearly not. His disguise had worked, although not in the way he had planned. Semper fi, Rod Stewart. See you next time.