Nesting and Nudity

The entire time I lived in America, not once was I naked in public. Since I have been in the UK, I have revealed my, um, assets to the good people of London twice in two weeks.

Despite the fact that I STILL have no access to money (thank you, HSBC), my disrobing was not a quick way to generate some cash (though give me another week, and I might turn to busking in the tube. The female part of ‘Love Shack’ has to be worth 50p, right?). No, my forays into flashing were completely random and involuntary…and can be blamed almost entirely on shopping for home goods.

I love not having a car, but when you’re trying to furnish a flat from the ground up, the absence of a trunk (that’s ‘boot’ for my English brothers and sisters) is a quite substantial restriction on getting anything bigger than a breadbox from store to home. As a result, I have been trying to purchase only items in combinations that allow me to somewhat comfortably lug them on the tube and on the ten-minute walk to my flat. This activity, however, usually requires the use of both hands and swift, controlled movements through the tube stations to prevent the blocking or tackling of anyone in my path.

My third day in London, I went to Marks and Spencer in search of a duvet (that’s ‘comforter’ for my American brothers and sisters) and some pillows. At good old M&S, both items come in nice, ergonomic boxes with handles on top, but they’re big and require some muscle. Because it was quite warm outside, I was wearing a knee-length swingy cotton jersey skirt. Happy with my purchases, I went back into the tube station, successfully navigated the turnstile and headed down the stairs to the train tracks.

Now here’s an important piece of information about the London underground: Many tube stations blow air at you. I don’t know why, but they do, so it does tend to be occasionally windy in the bowels of the system. So, picture if you will a be-skirted Alice, laden with huge boxes in both hands, walking down a flight of stairs in a manmade windstorm. Suddenly, with about 30 steps remaining, I become painfully aware of the fact that the wind has caught the bottom of my skirt, and it is now quite literally in my face. To the dozen or so people around me, including three men directly behind me, I am now completely, as they say here, “starkers” from the waist down. To add insult to injury, I also am not wearing, um, “complete coverage” underwear, if you get my drift.

I knew I couldn’t stop because I would have just been standing there trying to hold the skirt down with my boxes on either side of me, dreading the inevitable journey the rest of the way down the stairs. The only real choice was to keep going. So I sprinted down the remaining steps, totally aware that a crowd of people were watching my naked bum streak through Oxford Circus tube stop, and collapsed onto the train. Pretty me.

Then on Sunday, I was in Muji, a great Japanese design-for-the-masses store. High off the recent delivery of my bed to my flat and the subsequent stressful but productive trip to Ikea for matching furniture, I was eager to collect the remaining necessities required to settle into my new home. I was attempting to juggle a fitted sheet, a set of pillowcases, a blanket and several other items by clasping them to my chest on my journey to the register. As I dumped them onto the counter, I looked up at the sales clerk. And he was staring unabashedly at my chest.

Suddenly self conscious, I looked down and—I cannot being to fathom what sequence of events needed to take place in order for this to occur—my button-down shirt was completely, 100% unbuttoned. I was standing no more than three feet from this guy with my bra on full display. What sort of person does that?

I mumbled an apology and turned away to button myself back up, while the guy politely pretended I hadn’t just given him a peep show. I thought about jokingly asking for a discount on the items I was purchasing, but thought better of it. Then I hung my head in shame and headed back to the tube (this time, in what I’d thought was good defense against nudity, I was wearing jeans…no such luck).

So on the two-week anniversary of my arrival to London, I have exposed myself twice. Hopefully the trend will stop here. The good news is that in the process, I have also furnished my bedroom. It is really shaping up nicely and is turning into sanctuary I was hoping for. Tonight I’ll finish unpacking the last few boxes and then I’ll be set! Pictures coming soon, I promise. Of the room, not my nudity.