Meg Swims Naked

There was a whole list of things that I hadn't thought of, but suddenly became aware of when I heard several utterances from the rangers and my friends, all of which were concurrent with when I ducked my head and shoulders down into the tent.

Someone said, "Woah!"

Someone else just did a low whistle.

I think it was Caroline who said, "Oh, Sweetie!"

Trent or Paul said, "Hello!"

There was one grunt and a surprised "Oh!"

Realization hit me. Two rangers and my four friends were all looking right at my bum and my junk. My head and shoulders were down at the ground, my back was arched and I'd even put my knees out to the sides, so that I could push myself under the stuck zipper. I couldn't have given them all a more explicit view of everything between my legs if I had been trying.

With renewed panic, I completed the maneuver as quickly as I could. On the drive home, my friends made a point of telling me how my frantic wriggling made it even more fun to watch. At the time, I just remember several of them bursting out laughing.

As bad as that was, it got worse.

Many times since that day, I've laid awake at night unable to sleep as the next conversation, between Caroline and the ranger Ryan, replayed in my head.

Caroline: "Are those body-cams?"

Ryan: "Oh, yeah. They're new. There have been a few disputes between campers and rangers, so somebody decided we should capture all our interactions. Lots of animal encounters that they want to keep track of too."

Caroline: "Are they on?"

Ryan: "Always."

Caroline: "Can we get the memory card? You probably shouldn't let anyone else see..."

Ryan: "Oh, no. We can't open them or turn them off."

There was a pause. The screaming must have been only in my head because they kept talking.

Caroline: "Can we smash them? We'll pay you."

Ryan: "Oh, no. We'd lose our jobs."

Caroline: "But surely it must be illegal for footage... like this...."

Ryan: "It's like I said, public nudity is a violation of park policy and state law. We don't give campers a hard time about it unless there's a complaint, but from a legal point of view, it's just like streaking at a baseball game, nudists have no expectation of privacy."

Another pause. The screaming in my head got louder.

Caroline: "What happens to the footage?"

Ryan: "I think it's kept on a server for a month before it's deleted to make space. I wish I could say that it will be kept secure, but all park staff have access to it."

Caroline: "But maybe if you don't say anything, nobody will go look at it."

Ryan: "Our body-cams take a still every few seconds and use broadband to send it back to the central system. Those stills are used to identify anything interesting... " he must have realized the consequences of what he was saying because what he said next was clearly out of kindness, "...maybe nobody will find the stills interesting."

The screaming stopped when my head exploded. After that, I was in hell.

Ryan: "Um, unauthorized uploading of the images or video to social media is strictly prohibited, so I'm sure these images won't... um..."

Now he was definitely just trying to make me feel better. In the entire history of images of images of embarrassed naked women, what were the chances that mine would be the very first to avoid an "unauthorized uploading".

My eyes adjusted to the dark and I found the permit.

I stuck my arm out of the tent with the it in my hand. "Here's the permit. I'm not coming back out!"

There was a brief silence as Ryan walked toward the tent to take the permit out of my hand.

"I'm just going to stay in here forever," I said quietly.