Caught in the Nude!

My boyfriend Tom and I used to live in Kilmichael, Mississippi, just off of Highway 413, in an old farmhouse surrounded by cotton fields. We had moved into the old farmhouse recently and hadn't met many of our neighbors. In fact, we were under the impression that the property was relatively isolated, since no one up to that point had come to visit.

We were wrong.

I had decided to take a nice, long, hot bath one December afternoon. I soaked in the tub until my skin got all wrinkly. Eventually, I decided to step out of the tub and dry off. That's when I realized that my towel was sitting in the front room. (Before my bath, I had been folding laundry, and there was a nice, fluffy towel that I particularly liked.) I didn't want to disturb Tom, so I sloshed my way through the kitchen and dining room and into the front room. I was just about to reach for my towel when there was a knock at the door.

Tom hadn't seen me come in because he was just coming out of the bedroom and hadn't looked in my direction. He pulled opened the door nice and wide.

If there had been just one or two people who had seen me standing in the front room naked and wet, it wouldn't have mattered so much, but these were two adults and about a dozen children, who had come to sing us Christmas carols!

My first instinct was to run for cover. I sprinted to the bedroom. As I looked out from the windows at the shocked faces of the children outside, it dawned on me that we hadn't had time yet to put curtains on the windows! I dashed back into the front room and stood there for a moment, watching the carolers, who I couldn't help but notice were singing a little off-key. I was as still as a statue, like a wet, wrinkly deer caught in the headlights. Then, too flustered to remember about the fresh towel sitting there on the coffee table, I turned and ran as fast as my slippery feet could carry me back through the dining room and into the safety of the bathroom. I swore I could feel the eyes of the Christmas carolers following me as I streaked through the house, leaving tiny puddles of bathwater in my wake. I slammed the door shut behind me.

Basic, generic Christmas carolers knock on a person's door, sing a few well-known Yuletide classics, and leave to go to the next house. These were not ordinary Christmas carolers. This group sang in two-part harmony, then brought in a "welcome-to-the-neighborhood" bundt cake covered in chocolate frosting. Tom is diabetic, but he mentioned to the group that we were expecting our first baby, and since I was going to get big ANYWAY, this cake would be well-enjoyed by his wife, whom he couldn't find at the moment.

He hollered for me, but I was stuck in the bathroom with no towel, and I wasn't about to come out ANYWAY after all the kids in the neighborhood had caught an eyeful of my naked, wet, wrinkly self! I stepped back into the tub for a stress-reducing soak. By this time, I NEEDED one! By the time I ventured out of the bathtub and to the front room to get my towel, I was still a little pink from being caught in the nude, so I had a big piece of chocolate cake to make myself feel better. It was GOOD!

A few days later, when Tom and I went to return the cake plate to our neighbor, I made sure to put clothes on FIRST . . .