I got to know [Shane] and Sia after writing a brief article two years ago about a billboard on Sunset Boulevard that some people said was causing car accidents. The billboard displayed Shane and Sia, life-size, in the nearly altogether. My article apparently led to more publicity, and pretty soon the twins were appearing on calendars and posters. Since then, they have kept me up to date on their progress, as well as occasionally asking my advice on certain matters of taste.

While I have never met them, over the years I have built up a small Barbi Twins file thanks to the mementos Shane and Sia have sent me. Where other people have pictures of their children and their dogs, I have the Twins. No one around me paid much attention until this month's Playboy came out. Now, women make it clear they regard my collection as something to be carted off in a pooper scooper.

Some men have gotten belligerent. "Why would the Barbi Twins want to have anything to do with you?" they ask. Or, "why don't you give their phone number to someone who could make good use of it?" One fellow suggested I was being conned: "How do you know they exist, if you have only talked to them on the phone?" He was insinuating, of course, that the Barbi Twins are an artist's conception, a fantasy sold to the public with the help of a gullible reporter.