Busted

What is it about being in the car that makes us feel at ease about what should be private behaviors? I’ve already discussed the shocking number of people who I have witnessed picking their nose behind the wheel (although they would all deny it), but even I am guilty of far more than the occasional nasal cleaning.

The worst thing I was ever caught doing while driving was about 8 years ago I was in a play and I was driving to rehearsal from work. Please understand that I had a long commute from one locale to the next and very little time to change… also there was traffic, making me even later for rehearsal. So I suppose the next part is obvious, girl in traffic decides to change, girl in traffic strips down to almost nothing, idiot girl in traffic forgets that the cars around her are still capable of moving, you get it. I attempted to gain some privacy by pulling all the way into the left lane so there was only cars on one side of me, then I stopped my car in the bumper to bumper, strategically between two cars in the row next to me. Of course nobody was moving while I was taking off items, but rest assured as soon as I was fully revealed (I can’t recall now why my bra ever came off) the lane next to me inched forward just enough so that there was a car directly next to me.

The young gentleman in the neighboring car looked bored and irritated by the holdup. He casually glanced at the car to his left, probably just because the range of things to look at while sitting still was minimal. The first time he turned his head he clearly didn’t register what was going on a mere eight feet away from him because he went right back to looking forward… then as though I could see the gears in his head turning as he realized what he had seen he whipped his head back towards me, looking embarrassed. What could he do? He didn’t seem like a pervert, but if you see a topless female in her car stopped on the highway next to you, what are you going to do, look away as a courtesy? I would never ask for a stranger to do me any such favors and I deserved to be seen considering the location of my makeshift dressing room.

I didn’t even have tinted windows… oh jeez, I hope if I ever have children that they aren’t girls, because as teenagers, we (as a gender) are not always the smartest.

Anyways, so after I had a moment of sheer terror that I had been seen I realized that this guy was enjoying the show, and as I said before, not in a skeezy way. He smiled the type of smile that said, “Wow, this is awkward for both of us” (because it was) and so I did the only thing I could think to do, after the instinctive covering of myself, I waved and smiled back.

I called my father later that day and recounted the events to him and his response was, “Well, at least you made his day, that must have been quite a sight during traffic!” and although this wasn’t the response I was expecting from my normally strict and somewhat protective father, he was probably right. At the very least that guy now has something to write about in his blog.