A pervert in the park...

I was just strolling around Lake Calhoun, gettin’ my exercise on, when I saw something disturbing. Now, for those of you who don’t live in the Minneapolis area, Lake Calhoun is a pretty busy place, located as it is near the heart of the city’s youthful hipster zone. In the summer, it’s crowded with sunbathers, joggers, bicyclists, eight-year-olds on rollerblades, and all sorts of other types. Now, it pains me to say it, but into this nebulous “other types” category, we must now add perverts. Dirty, dirty perverts. Let me explain.

I was walking behind a guy in a plaid shirt. He looked pretty normal to me, but his kind always do. He was of normal height, normal weight, he had a normal sunburnt complexion, and his hair was receding away in the normal manner. He was utterly unremarkable. I barely paid him any attention. But suddenly he strolled over to the side of the walking path, stepped onto the ring of grass that separated the trail from the lake, and put his hands on his crotch. Now, at this point he was facing the other way, so I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, but it seemed pretty clear that he was about to whip out his man-business.

Holy shit, I thought, is he about to whip out his man-business? I hadn’t even finished asking myself this before I saw an arcing stream of piss go trickling into the lake. And he wasn’t being subtle about it. Not to abuse you with needless forensic details, but from the parabola his urine formed, I could tell that he was holding his junk at an upward angle. I mean, the lake was at least six feet from him, so a certain amount of lift from his end would be required to hit it. The sight was so strange it shocked me into naivete. Why doesn’t he just get closer to the water? Or why didn’t he just walk another ten yards into that stand of trees, where he’d at least have a little privacy? Come to think of it, why didn’t he just walk another twenty five yards to the public bathrooms near the beach?

As I hurried past him, the sound of his whizzing still tinkling into the still water, the obvious answer occurred to me: he was a big ol’ pervert. There were dozens of people around who could have seen him, which must have appealed to his sick, sick brain. There were elderly couples and there were frolicking children. There were ridiculously-fit dudes with oil all over their chests and there were Nordic goddesses in string bikinis. He wanted these people, these innocent people, to see him taking a wee-wee.

I mean, I’ll just come right out and say it: that’s fucking gross.