No Shirt. No Shoes. No Service.

I know in some California beach towns you'll see all sorts of people walkin' around half dressed. Sun-bleached blond gods with their board shorts, surf gear, sporting nothing much else except their sand blasted Hurley flip-flops. Honey tanned just turned eighteen girls with their long hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, sporting that Roxy bikini, Havaianas, ten perfectly manicured pink toes, and a butterfly tattooed across the peach fuzz of their lower back and not much else left to the imagination. But those are California beach towns where the weather's warm, the sand is hot, and the sun is baking all those coconut oiled specimens of human perfection. But this is Monterey. Where summer is defined over a drink at the bar as a couple of weekends sometime in August. It never gets really hot enough to start shedding street clothes. The tans you see on the locals are purchased along with a fruity drink and a pair of plastic eye cups to keep you from going blind in the UV coffin at the local tanning salon. Summer here boasts of the chance to shed a layer, bare the arms above your elbows, and maybe go out without a jacket... but only if you're coming home before dark. Walking around half dressed isn't usually a sight you see on the streets of this beach community. Even those who dare the frigid bay, walk out of the water in a wet suit, shaking off the cold and jamming their bare butts into a pair of sweats and a hooded jacket as fast as they can... not because someone might see them naked, but because it's freakin' cold when that breeze off the bay hits your soaked hair. So you can imagine my double-take when I saw a man walking down the street today, half dressed. Mind you, not a street that runs along the ocean. Not even a street with an ocean view from the top balcony of any of the buildings. No. This was one of those inland streets that can smell the ocean, but not quite see it. He had on a Gilligan hat, tank top with a long-sleeved denim shirt fastened all the way to the collar, a pair of old-man sandals, black socks, and.. well, nothing else. I'm guessing there might have been a speedo underneath the hem of his worn button down, or maybe some tighty-whiteys... but, well, pretty much he looked naked. And not in an Adonis god of beauty and desire sort of naked. No, this was old-man-pale naked. Flabby knees naked. Grey hairy legs naked. Not pretty. Definitely not California naked. And it got me to wondering. Where was he going? There is a beach about a mile away, but he wasn't headed in that direction, and he certainly didn't look like that was where he had been all day. No, he was casually walking down the street, as if he was out for his twilight constitutional and simply forgot his pants. I watched him as he stopped in front of a local diner and counted the change he kept in his shirt pocket. The hand-lettered warning in the window says "No Shirts. No Shoes. No Service." Well, I suppose he qualifies for a dinner at their fine establishment. Either that, or their going to have to change their sign. Because, like Mr. No Pants, the diner seems to have forgotten something.