Every Thursday I eat at our school’s cafeteria situated beside the beach. Today, I was thankful that I did because of the following exchange.

A ruckus interrupted my hot dog and beans and I turned to see two of our national staff of Indian descent yelling furiously toward the ocean. They spoke in Tamil, so I couldn’t understand them, but another staff caught one of the more universal parts of their communication – a middle finger sticking up all alone.

What could cause such a display just as students started descending the steps for their lunch?

I turned to the right and saw a man, wrapped in a white towel, sheepishly walking away, occasionally looking back as if afraid of a dog chasing him. He looked guilty of something, but, again, I don’t understand Tamil.

Then our yard guy made it all plain. He gestured like a man quickly removing a towel from one’s privates. Oh, indeed, we had a nude sunbather. It was quite strange, actually. We get the occasional tourist in a g-string, but rarely the full Monty – and rarer yet, from a Chinese. Strange, indeed.

I thought the antics were over and went back to my salad, when lo and behold, the naturalist starts walking back toward the school’s seawall – luckily, fully clothed. He walked over toward the guard house and the guys let into him again. I couldn’t see the excitement, but the strange words themselves were enjoyable enough.

After another couple of minutes, the man, who shall forever more be known as the man in the white towel, came back in my direction. I turned around to trail him with my eyes out of sight. He caught me staring, (remember, he was clothed at this point) and he stopped 20 feet from me and glared through the iron bars, gesturing wildly with his face and arms. If I were to translate his actions, they would have meant something like this: “Beep, beep, beep.”

Since I don’t swear on this blog, let me repeat it another way: “This is public land, and I can do whatever I want, so stop looking at me you beep, beep, beep.” This is, of course, roughly translated.

That is, in my view, a tenuous position for the man in the white towel to be in. After all, we live in a predominately Muslim country which views modesty as something to be valued and followed – (lest you are arrested for indecent exposure). Secondly, he decided to show his wares beside a school cafeteria where children of all ages from K-12 were just about to partake a peaceful lunch.

So whatever rights you man in a white towel think you have, I’m pretty sure they are about as valid as a gum-chewer in Singapore.

So, I applaud, loudly, the brave yard men who stood up for decency and chased away our towel hero into obscurity.

I also applaud the man in the white towel for providing myself with an entertaining lunch.