the naked thief
/Have you ever worried you’ll lose your clothes in a dressing room while begging random shoppers for an opinion on a new outfit? Or you’ll run out of the house when deer start eating your hostas and forget you’re naked? Or villains from another planet will abduct you in the middle of the night and zap your nightgown, leaving your body for all to see?
Me neither. But when it comes to baring all, the imagination does tend to run wild.
Certainly, though, you have dreamed of being shamefully exposed in some fashion or another, perhaps while sitting at a meeting nude and helpless, your head tucked between your knees.
These dreams, according to psychologists, could mean a fear of embarrassment, a sense of inferiority, or a desire for attention—because naked does seem to attract a crowd.
Well, I’m glad to report I can cross the naked fear off my list. If you need to picture how this happened, imagine a petite woman with wet hair in a tiny towel looking like a pig in a blanket while bent over the floor struggling to unlock a gym locker, her hind cheeks high in the air.
Not so horrible, unless it goes on for an interminably long time, which it did, because Locker Number 350 would not open with my secret combination, 911.
After consulting a curious group of sweaty onlookers, I picked up the emergency phone in the locker room and soon my criminal interrogation began.
Attendant: Can you please tell me what’s in the locker?
Me: Um, my clothes. Have you noticed my quivering flesh is totally visible top to bottom?
Attendant (dead serious): What kind of clothes?
Me: The clothes I need to cover my buck-naked butt. Hello!
Attendant: And what would those clothes look like? I need exact details.
Me: (Is this a joke? Who remembers these things?) Uh, um . . . black sweatpants, a gray T-shirt, a baseball cap, maybe sneakers. Yes, black sneakers. What else do I ever wear? Oh, and a hazmat suit because you never know what will happen on any given day, as we’re proving right now.
Satisfied, she inserts her key while I panic I’ve gotten the locker wrong and will soon be revealed as the naked thief I am. Glory be, my clothes are there.
Curious who would stage a snatch like this, I asked the attendant if naked people had tried to steal this way before.
Attendant: Never.
Me: I know you’re trained to ask these questions but is it possible, even in your wildest naked dreams, to envision a situation in which a dripping nude female would conduct a heist of expensive streetwear in this fashion?
She listened, maybe afraid I’d gone mad and would report her.
Me: So let me see . . . First, the cunning thief cases the joint, chooses a well-dressed victim, and watches her change into a lululemon outfit and Nikes. Then the thief hides her own clothes, grabs a shower, wraps herself in a mildly absorbent piece of terry cloth, and lurks in wait for the perfect moment to call security hoping they get there before the hapless victim huffs and puffs back in.
Timing is critical, I told her, and would require superhuman powers of transportation to also watch the second floor StairMaster where the victim could be pumping away.
Or, thinking one can’t play this caper more than once, I said it would be good if the first burglary pays off mighty well. That would demand superhuman vision to see if any money is inside a pocket inside the clothes inside the locker inside the gym.
Still, I added to my poor attendant, if it could by some miraculous feat be done, it could be worth it, because it could give a dull suburbanite and upstanding yogi a radical new identity, and who doesn’t want that at some point in life?
I paused for a moment and considered whether I felt insulted or embarrassed or annoyed in any way. I didn’t. Instead, I realized, I felt younger and stronger and bold, and that shocked me more than being caught with my pants gone.
I grabbed my attendant, gave her a big smile, and thanked her for making my day. Really, I told her, when was the last time anyone implied, in even the slightest way, that I had superhuman powers?