Mooning in Hi-Def

A funny thing happened when shopping for a new TV today.

The salesman took the satellite remote and tried to find a movie that would best show the quality of the sets. He settled on "Space Cowboys".

After a few minutes the scene where James Garner, Donald Sutherland, Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones bare their behinds for a physical appeared on the screen.

The poor salesman didn't know what to do. He was obviously panicked, and gestured frantically to another guy on the floor to kill the signal, to no avail. The mooning was complete on dozens of big screen televisions for all to see.

I reassured him that it was OK, that we were not offended. I wanted to tell him that we were nudists but he probably wouldn't have believed that anyway.

He mumbled something about nobody really wants to see naked "old geezers", which prompted me to remind him that I was rapidly approaching old geezerhood myself. Then he said something about how he was glad that there were no kids in the store at the time, that there could have been a real problem, even though the movie was rated PG-13.

I almost wanted to buy a TV on the spot to make him feel better, but I'm pretty anal when it comes to buying these things, and I'm still researching.

It's just eye-opening to encounter this sort of body phobia, especially about something so banal as the fleeting sight of some geriatric derrieres. I think the salesman actually feared for his job. I'm sure I could have asked for the manager, filed a complaint, and if not have gotten him fired, at least put him into some serious hot water, but I didn't want to make an ass out of myself.

Come to think of it, had I been a bit more devious, I might have been able to squeeze the deal of the year out of him in exchange for my silence on the moongate scandal.

Even though we didn't make a purchase, the store did have a great deal on a 46" Sony XBR9, which also did the best job in reproducing flesh tones. The hi-def mooning might have given salesmen a near heart attack, but for us, it just about sealed the deal.