Jay Gabler (my boss at the TCDP) has been making these Local Lists and I contributed to this one recently: “Summer in the Twin Cities is almost over! I’d better hurry up and…” My contribution was: “Get my clothes confiscated by the cops while I’m skinny-dipping…again.”
I ran into Jaybler the other night on my way to a #30daysofbiking party, and it somehow came up that this came from an actual adventure of mine, so it seemed like a good idea to tell the story. But I should clarify that we weren’t actually skinny-dipping, because that would be illegal. Right? And I’m putting my name on this post. So here’s what actually happened, for real.
On a hot and sticky Minneapolis night, some friends and I decided to go for a swim (something we did many, many times this summer, of course). It was probably only like 7 p.m. and definitely not dark (because we know that Minneapolis parks close at sundown) and we chose one of Minnesota’s ten thousand lakes for a dip. We left our clothes on the beach and, er, changed into swimsuits—because none of us would ever get naked in public! never!—and splashed into the lake to cool off.
Before it started to get dark—because it was definitely not dark when we got into the lake in our swimsuits—my friend Merriweather and I, being the responsible adults we are, decided to get out and go for a walk together because we like to talk to each other. We didn’t tell anyone we were getting out of the lake and no one noticed, because they were so distracted with talking and swimming and definitely not drinking alcohol.
Merriweather and I were walking around the lake and got into a really long conversation because we found out that we have the same boyfriend. We totally did have the same boyfriend, even though none of you have ever heard anything about that before. We were just going to get in her car and go to Kowalski’s, which we know is open all night, to pick up some ice cream to bring back to our friends, but we got so into our conversation that it got to be dark before we went back to the lake! Then we found out—via textual message—that our friends had been kicked out of the lake for swimming at night and that one of them even got a ticket because his swimsuit totally fell off or was pulled off by some kind of fish while he was swimming and he showed up on shore in front of the cop completely nude! And some people who we definitely didn’t know had some unopened beer on the beach but the cop didn’t even care to give them a ticket because hello, completely naked guy standing in front of her on the beach with maybe even a chunk taken out of his leg by that nasty fish!
Luckily, we weren’t still at the beach but were out around the city in places where it is legal to be at night. However, we have left our clothes on the beach assuming that our friends wouldn’t leave them there and would make sure they weren’t harmed. But, alas, the cops apparently took them! Since our nudie friend didn’t know we’d left, he even called out to us to get out of the water and he told us later (because we definitely weren’t still there to hear her) that the cop even yelled for us to “kiss our belongings goodbye.”
Later I went to the Property Evidence Room, and the guy with the braided beard who works there asked if I’d been skinny dipping. I assured him that I would never do that! He thought my answer was pretty great and definitely believed me and definitely cared whether or not I had actually been hiding in the lake holding hands with Merriweather under the water trying not to move or laugh or scratch the huge welts on my face from mosquitos as he suspected. Luckily, I totally wasn’t doing that and the story as I have told it is completely error-free.
I thought I remembered some kind of muskrat scaring Merriweather almost out of the water after dark in the lake, but it couldn’t have been since it was certainly earlier in the night when it was still light out. And she definitely didn’t have only her face poking out of the water while we both got West Nile and Dengue Fever from some sort of biting insect that lives in the dirt by the shore of some Minneapolis lake.
Braided Beard Guy had to make a phone call to make sure that he could give me the whole “quantity of women’s clothing” because he was dreading picking through it asking me which items were mine. He definitely didn’t want to have to hold up my underwear for me to identify. As you all know, I would never take my clothes off in public, so you know this story is completely authentic. I hope this tale convinces you that getting your clothes confiscated by the cops is totally worth going home in only a blanket—er, swimsuit and towel.
Photo by Andrew Middleton (Creative Commons)
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