I could tell by the look on her face that my sister-in-law thought I was dead wrong… and a little crazy. We were sitting around the dining room table on Saturday evening, along with my mother-in-law having a glass of wine before dinner. I was explaining to them my theory of Naked Rights.
You see, this is what happens when you spend an entire weekend together… and drink red wine. Eventually you exhaust the usual topics of work, kids, and politics and delve into more philosophical, life altering discussions. Or, in other words, you become Larry David. Being the intellectual that I am, I was sharing my long-pondered theory which mathematically calculated who had the broadest rights to run around the house naked that weekend. Put more simply, I was able to ascertain with a rudimentary formula who among our group of 12 staying at my in-laws would offend the fewest people if he or she decided to go completely “al fresco.”
The answer was my husband.
The cohabitants in question were:
Our family (me, Dave, Noah and Chase)
Dave’s parents (Fran and Mike)
Dave sister’s family (Beth, husband Jeff, daughter Eliza and son Sam)
In order for my theory to hold true, you must believe the following:
- It is acceptable to be naked in front of your own immediate family (parents, spouse, brothers, sisters).
- It is acceptable to be naked in front of those of the same gender.
I agree this theory is stretch for some (including my sister-in-law). But under this scenario, the only person that was holding Dave back from spending the entire Thanksgiving weekend at his parents buck naked was our niece Eliza. Everyone else fell under the category of immediate family or same gender. However if I wanted to be naked, I would offend the most people including my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and my nephew Sam.
Beth, who has her PhD in psychology, was kind enough to refute my theory with a rather scientific explanation:
“I haven’t seen my brother naked since he was eight years old. It would completely gross me out.”
She had a point.
With my “immediate family” hypothesis blown out of the water, we moved on to less serious topics, all of us quietly thanking the universe that no one was interested in conducting any experiments. Hopefully, I will be invited back next year.
So what did you talk about this holiday weekend?
