My Naked Adventures

When I was in high school, I had an obsession with being naked.  If you ask my wife, that obsession has really never gone away, but it was worse in high school.  I liked the freedom of it, but I also liked the excitement and adventure that came with the stigma that being naked is taboo and unacceptable in polite society.  It’s not like I went to nude beaches or flashed people on the sidewalk.  I was more of a secret exhibitionist.

I liked to go sans clothes when there was a chance people might “catch” me, but also when that chance was small.  For example, I started by walking around the house naked after everyone had gone to bed.  This graduated into venturing out into the backyard naked and doing what I liked to call “moon bathing.”  I have also driven naked from my friend’s house back to my house, but it was early in the morning and there were no cars out.  But it was like with any drug, with each successful “hit” I had to up my game to something more daring and bold.

The epitome came one night when I decided to streak down my entire street.  My street had the distinction of being different from every other street in the city in one regard.  It had a line of trees down the middle of the road that split the street into two parts.  So, one night right around supper time, I headed out to the middle of the street naked and hid behind a tree.  When nobody seemed to be raising the alarm, I darted to the next tree, and then the next.  With every tree, I gained more and more confidence, until I started to take the trees in twos and threes.   Finally, I was running buck naked down the street without stopping. 

It was exhilarating and exciting in a way that I could never describe to you.  The air was cool against my skin, which shone a pale, bluish-white in the full moon.  The adrenaline was pumping through my veins, even as my legs were pumping down the street.  The leaves and dirt were soft under my bare feet.  I have never felt more alive and free.  That is until a car turned onto my street, and I found myself fully-exposed in their headlights.

I quickly darted behind a tree and hoped that they hadn’t seen me, but I was not to be so lucky.  In fact, the car slowed down and inched past me in an interminable crawl.  It was only after it was a little ways past my hiding place that I saw that it wasn’t just a car, but a police car.  As the police made their way to the next turnaround to u-turn and come back, I dashed across the street into someone’s yard and hid in the bushes.  The police shone their search light on every tree and into several yards, but I was too well-hidden.  After a few passes, they gave up and continued on down the road in the direction they were originally headed.

Even after they were gone, I waited several tense moments before deciding that this had to be one of the stupidest ideas I had ever come up with.  With a lot less excitement and with the adrenaline pumping through my body for a completely different reason, I slowly made my way back home, taking cover behind every single tree along the road.  As I dressed again in the backyard, I decided that I probably should cool it on the naked adventures for a while.  I would pick them up again later in life, but nothing so bold and daring as streaking down the street and hiding from the police.