From the relative discomfort of our elliptical trainer I watched The Simpsons tonight. In the opening credits Bart was seen through the schoolhouse window writing something like:

We're not all naked under our clothes.

It's not just that the statement is incorrect -- I thought I was the first to posit that we indeed are naked under our clothes.

It happened at college graduation, 1988, and I made the comment as a quick defensive move. Even at the time I suspected it wasn't a completely original thought -- still I thought it was pretty clever.

The context was a very hot day in May. I decided to forego the suit and tie and attend the commencement ceremony au naturel beneath my cap and gown. It wasn't really a stunt -- I didn' tell anyone. People would see the mortaboard cap up top, motorcycle boots down below, and a dark gown in the middle. Who would know?

Well, we lined up and waited. Regina, being next in alphabetical order, stood alongside me and we chatted. At some point she put her arm around my waist and, well, noticed a lack of waistband. She lauged uproariously, even as I urged her to keep it quiet -- I knew the school was still on edge from the previous year's graduation prank featuring Ed Merhige (yeah, that Ed Merhige) tearing off his gown and rushing the stage while wearing a giant strap-on phallus. Sure enough, as word spread about my, er, choice of foundations, a concerned-looking student life director came over to interrogate me:

"Uh, are you wearing anything under that gown?" he asked.

And that's when it just sort of fell out of my mouth:

"Are you wearing anything uder your clothes?"

Original insight or not, it defused the situation. I got my degree, put on clothes, and was treated to a lovely sushi dinner in Hawthorne.

Pointless story? You bet. But I gotta have something to think about as I'm working out on the elliptical. After about 30 minutes of that (I don't have an attention span to go longer) I sat down with the boys to watch the last minutes of The Simpsons. That's when Mojo's loose tooth finally came out. His first! (A little late, if you ask me -- not only had Cookie lost several by this time last year, but Mojo's permanent teeth are already filling in... behind the baby teeth... in a second row... kind-a like a shark).