Today in Unnecessary Nakedness

In the right time and place, naked can be a beautiful thing. The gym I frequent is not such a place.

Socrates might ask of his fellow philosophers, “Is it--or is it not-- appropriate to be sitting completely naked in front of Paul’s gym locker casually reading a book on executive management?”

And the philosophers would answer in unison, “Master, it is certainly not!”

But there’s an executive manager out there who disagrees with the wisdom of the ancients and he’s not visually pleasing.

Perhaps more understandable, but still unsettling: last week’s long naked discussion in front of my locker regarding riding lawnmowers with another gym patron. Also naked. Not just a naked hello, but a full naked conversation with many naked, naked follow-up questions regarding blade-height and horsepower.

And it’s not even lawn-care season!

And then there’s today, where yet another casually unclothed gym patron initiates a conversation, this time with me:

“So are you like watching the Super Game this weekend? I wonder if during the Break Time Show there will be another Clothing Mis-fire.”

The correct terms he should’ve used are: Super Bowl; Half-Time Show; and Wardrobe Malfunction.

I’m pretty clueless about sports, but even I know that people don’t talk like that. The only reasonable assumption is that he’s actually an alien majoring in Anthropology at Mothership University.

And he must be failing because ANTH 101 teaches that traditional human costumes for conversation between non-intimates consist of cloth draped over our bodies. In football terms, he would be flagged with a 10-yard penalty for unnecessary nakedness.