Although Diddy's house is surrounded by a fence, it's only about four feet high. It's the kind of thing that's really only useful for keeping out sheep, or heavy children. But as I was feeling a little lead-legged myself, I decided to try my hand at hacking the front gate controls first. This was done by hitting the "Open" button on the keypad and then waiting five or so seconds for the gate to slide open. I guess Diddy loses his clicker pretty often?

The front door was a bit better, in that it did have a deadbolt, which was locked, albeit not actually shut. Instead, I found the door hanging wide open, swinging back and forth in the breeze, the deadbolt preventing the door from closing. It was the kind of thing you'd do if you were worried about locking yourself out of your hotel room when you ran to get ice, or wanted your prostitute to get in without having to knock.

I'm guessing that Diddy didn't have any prostitutes coming, though, because the alarm went off as soon as I stepped inside. The same thing happened to Diddy's first Goldilocks case, but that guy was able to convince the responding security company that he was a member of Diddy's entourage. I considered trying the same, although privately I doubted that my improvisational skills would be sufficient. Acting black isn't really an "uninsulting" look for me.

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Imagine an Eazy-E impression combined with an Urkel impression performed by Linus from Peanuts.

So I decided to play it straight, and when the alarm company did roll up, I just explained to them that I was from Cracked. That was good enough for them, I suspect because they're not a very good alarm company.

... and one drawer full of Dockers khakis. Half of his shirt drawer was full of rumpled button-downs that really should have been hanging up. The other half was full of T-shirts from software conferences. I guess Diddy did some FoxPro programming in his past? Or just likes baggy, tarplike garments?

And I mean everywhere. In the bedroom, the living room, the other bedroom, the kitchen, the other kitchen, the library. The library, in fact, consisted of nothing but bodybuilding magazines, all four walls covered in shelves full of archived back editions of Muscle, Flex, Muscleman, Ironman, Flexman and Stout.

Curiously, I couldn't find a weight room anywhere.

"MmM. Mmm MMm MmmmM MM mm mmMMmmm mm m mmFM mmf?" he asked, which I'm pretty sure meant "Hey. Are you just breaking in and hanging out for a bit?"

"Yeah, just for a bit. I'm from Cracked," I explained.

"Mm, mmm. MMM MM mm mmms." (Hey, cool. I love you guys.)

"Awesome, thanks."

"Mmm Mmmmm mmmfm mm mmm MM mm mmMM?" (Is Soren really as pretty in real life?)

"No, not really."

The gimp nodded, and after a kind of awkward moment, I helped him back into the trunk and closed the lid.

I guess you wouldn't expect P. Diddy to have anything but the coolest, most reasonable gimp, but still: I was impressed.

Knowing what I was dealing with, I was able to pick my way through the rest of the labyrinth and booby traps with ease, eager to see the prize at the end; recall the conclusion of the film, where the kids find a hidden pirate ship filled with treasure that they use to save their parents' crappy homes. Wanting to see how Diddy had recreated this, I clambered onto the deck of the replica ship and eagerly made my way inside. Where I found more bodybuilding magazines.

I eventually got around to the heart of the matter, which was that Diddy seemed to be a lot more accepting of people wandering through his house than a normal person might, which was to say, not at all. Diddy hummed and hawed for a while, kind of avoiding the question, but after a while I kind of figured out what the deal was: He's pretty lonely. The people you meet running multinational rap and clothing enterprises can at times be a bit off-putting. Here he was, wealthier and more popular than ever, yet somehow isolated. So yeah, why not keep the front door unlocked? See what happens.

I explained to him that I often felt that my enormous intelligence and habit of unnecessarily bringing up the same also isolated me from people, and mentioned the special Japanese hugging pillows that I'd purchased to help me with that. Diddy got very excited about this news, and over the next few hours we sketched out a whole new business plan for a company that would produce ultra-high-end companionship pillows to be marketed to the prestigious and lonely. The whole production is going to be called Esteem (Diddy's name), and he even agreed to cut me in for 3 percent of the net.

I kind of had some things to do at that point, but it was still a little awkward extracting myself -- Diddy kept inviting me to hang out and watch some Top Chef episodes he had on the PVR. I explained I had a column to write, and he kind of got what I was saying, and then we had a hug that went on only about one second too long, and then I left.

The next day, Diddy sent me one of his gimps in the mail, along with a "Thank You" card, or I guess maybe the gimp came on the train and just carried the card with him. Which was a nice gesture, I guess, although I think gifts that fancy so soon comes off as a bit stalkerish.

But the gimp is pretty good at hugging.

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For more from Bucholz, check out So You're Accidentally Stalking Helen Mirren and The 7 Most Impossible Rock Stars to Deal With.

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