There’s a big question out there that hasn’t really been answered yet: what would happen if you got up one day, took a shower, brushed your teeth and went to class, but didn’t wear any clothes? Specifically, how long could you go through your normal day naked?

Not to be random. This, of course, was brought up at a Center Court dinner in which little else could be found to prolong our food intake and delay our execution of homework. So, the question is now out there. My bet was one hour. My roommate Jon says, “I wouldn’t make it past Mallinckrodt.” Others postulated getting clocked by the fuzz at some point in between the two.

The reasoning behind my hypothesis was that people really have no idea what to do in that situation. I mean, people would notice that you were naked, but if you saw a naked guy walking down the sidewalk toward Mallinckrodt and through campus to class, what would you do? I would be totally stunned and then maybe laugh about it, but I wouldn’t pick up my phone and call WUPD or anything sensible like that.

It’s like diffusion of responsibility. Everyone else thinks, “Oh, hey, there’s a naked guy/girl, I’m sure somebody has already informed the proper de-nudifying authorities. It’ll be just moments until some large man comes and comically clotheslines him/her.” Which is perfectly understandable, I guess. But say everyone thinks that? Say you make it all the way to psychology class, sit in the third row from the back, and slouch down a bit so as to be slightly hidden. You might not get many people sitting next to you, but you just might make it through class. You might even make it to your next one.

My call, though, is that the word would somehow get out when the right informer talks to the right informee, and an officer of the law would bust in about 25 minutes into class and drag your naked arse out of there. But, of course, we’ll never really know unless someone does it (cough…).

But that’s not the point. It’s important to get to a bigger idea here, whether the naked person makes it all the way back to his dorm at the end of the day or gets tackled just as he walks past the clocktower. The point is, you can do a lot of crazy, ridiculous stuff and get away with it. I was thinking the other day, remember the days when you were like, “Man, I can’t wait ’til college when there aren’t any rules”? There kind of aren’t any now. But people aren’t crazy and ridiculous like they could be.

Maybe it’s because we slowly got sensitized toward freedom as we got closer to going to college. Maybe it’s because we’re vaguely intelligent. Maybe it’s because being crazy and ridiculous back when we were evolving would have meant getting eaten by a tiger.

But what comes from this is that you have to remember that there aren’t really rules anymore, beyond official legislation and universal standards of decency. What you always wanted, you’ve now got. And I shouldn’t be naive by thinking that there aren’t people who take full advantage of their freedom by being unreasonably insane every night, but for those of us who ascribe more to the doing your work, going to class kind of lifestyle, it is crucial to remember not to get stuck in a rut and feel like you’re trapped.

Most people, I think, have figured this out already, but it’s good to be reminded that you really don’t have to do anything. When everyone was stressing out over midterms the last month, really, they could have just not studied. I mean, there’s no reason to complain about something you do of your own volition (besides, admittedly, the sport of it). Everything you do, even studying, is because you want to do it. You say you “have to,” but that’s only because you “have to” to get a good grade, which, when it comes down to it, is just something you want to do.

The day-to-day routine seems dreary a lot, especially when it’s November and and it’s cold. But really, you don’t even have to go outside if you don’t want to. Ultimately, you’re just doing it because you want to be a normally functioning human being. But it’s your choice. So wear a hat. Or, if you really want to, you could just wear nothing at all.

Dennis is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at sweeney@wustl.edu.

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