Three Miniskirts

Posted on September 26, 2005 in Encounters

Three times over the last three days, I found myself looking at a woman’s butt.

Friday, San Diego Wild Animal Park: At the bottom of the Heart of Africa section, the heat started getting to me. I felt nausea like a glowing grain of blue sand in the pit of my stomach. I drink all the water left in my camelback, climb to the gift shop and snack area where Lynn, Mindy, and I stop to rest in the shade. The grass umbrella and the water sooth. As my nausea disappears, I refill the camelback and two canteens.

When I sit down again, I see a tall fortyish woman — skinny as a praying mantis — strut ahead of her friends and lover. Dark hair glazed over with faint red. Pale orange tank-top. And a black leather mini-skirt.

She strides past us three times by herself. Then the rest of her party comes up from the giraffe feeding area. Her lover is shorter: a thin, smirking gnome sporting a beard, a black baseball cap, and the obligatory black Harley Davidson t-shirt. The other woman in the party is shorter and plumper. The other man fades from my memory except for his white baseball cap.

Saturday, Huntington Beach. I am enjoying lunch with Leah and a few other friends. Leah’s head turns as far as it can, first to her right and then to her left. It eases out to a ninety degree angle. She turns to me.

“That woman’s practically naked,” she says.

One of the waitresses? I wonder. I scan the coffee and condiments area, then look back at my friend.

“No,” she says,” seeing my futile glimpsing. “In the bathroom.”

My friend tells me when the girl comes out. A few of us at the table, men and women, check her out. She’s blocky Asian. Her pale olive colored skirt has been cut so that a long fringe hangs down. The cut approaches the crack at the top of her thighs. I do not see her face as she leaves the restaurant.

She leaves in the company of a lanky fellow who has lavender hair. I nod towards him. “That explains it.” The people at the table laugh.

Sunday, Fall Festival at St. Andrew’s Abbey, Valyermo. The day’s not too hot even though we’re at the south edge of the Mojave Desert. After walking past the craft booths, Lynn and I decide it is time to have lunch. Lots of booths and three “restaurants” entice us. There’s barbecued chicken, nachos, frozen lemonade, roast beef, hot dogs, hamburgers, korean barbecue, haute cafe cuisine, and roast corn.

Because Lynn is a corn freak, we each grab an ear slathered in butter and skewered on a short stick. Then we check out the roast beef to see if they have a vegetarian entree. No. Just beef.

Cafe Vincent is our next stop. A diner lets us see his menu: salads and small sandwiches for a slightly inflated price. Good enough because we know that this goes to support the monastery. We find the entrance, wait in line for less than ten minutes. The hostess shows us a nice table in the shade. Our waitress’s name is Trouble.

I’ve got pants and skirts on my mind. I check out the legs of the waitresses and the waiters. One young woman walks by, her well-tanned legs holding up a short skirt. There are a few other skirts or short pants among the staff. One man who wears a silver cross has long black slacks.

How typical of the modern American Catholic Church, I think. The women may flaunt their legs, but the men cover their’s lest they be an object of lust — for other men.

The church’s obsession with men comes up again when Abbot Francis asks us to pray for “our brothers in Iraq….and everywhere that there is war.” What about our sisters?